Smart speakers, spam and robocalls: testing the boundaries of the e- Privacy regulation

Smart speakers, thanks to the capabilities of their vocal assistants, offer new possibilities for direct marketing. Whether by triggering the vocal assistant to recite an advertising – without the intervention of their owners – or by using the incredible human-mimicking skills of the assistants to place a live phone call, the potential intrusiveness of these practices on the private sphere of individuals raises some concerns. In this paper I argue that those capabilities of vocal assistants and their applications for direct marketing should be regulated under art. 16 of the e-Privacy Regulation concerning unsolicited communications. With the current wording of art. 16, however, direct marketing via smart speakers might lie in a grey area. This article offers an exploration of the issues concerning the application of the provisions on unsolicited communications to vocal assistants, as well as possible recommendations on how to solve them.