It also operates Neighbors, a social network that allows users to discuss local safety and security issues, and share footage captured with Ring products.

The Neighbors service has been criticized by civil rights advocacy groups as building a private surveillance network backed by law enforcement agencies until the 'Request for Assistance (RFA)' option was discontinued in 2024.

[6] In 2013, Siminoff and Doorbot appeared on an episode of the reality series Shark Tank to seek a $700,000 investment in the company, which he estimated was worth $7 million.

[9] The company raised over $200 million in investments from Kleiner Perkins, Qualcomm Ventures, Goldman Sachs, DFJ Growth and Sir Richard Branson.

[26][27][28][29] The United States House Committee on Oversight and Accountability launched an investigation into Ring's data-sharing partnerships with local governments and police departments on February 19, 2020.

[30][31] In October 2020, Congress published the report on competition in digital markets, featuring their findings on acquisitions entrenching Amazon Alexa's dominance of the 'internet of things'.

[36] In May 2023, the Federal Trade Commission reached a $5.8 million settlement with Ring, asserting that Ring "[compromised] its customers' privacy by allowing any employee or contractor to access consumers' private videos and by failing to implement basic privacy and security protections, enabling hackers to take control of consumers' accounts, cameras, and videos.

[citation needed] In September 2020, Ring unveiled the "Always Home Cam", an aerial indoor camera that flies on a predetermined path when activated by an alarm sensor.

A promotional video shows a woman in a call center remote-controlling the robot to confront burglars after receiving an alert from the Ring security system.

[64] In March 2023, Amazon opened up the Sidewalk protocol to developers, claiming IoT network coverage of up to 90% of the country with mainly Ring and Alexa devices.

All user posts are anonymous and do not include specific location information, and are moderated to remove off-topic content (in contrast to services such as Nextdoor).

Ring also has partnerships with local police departments in some cities to incorporate Neighbors into their crime monitoring processes, who are able to make official posts for distribution on the service.

[23][24] Amazon disclosed Ring's criteria for accepting requests from police departments for video footage shared to Neighbors in a response to left wing Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey on November 1, 2019.

Ring also stated that they provided at most 12 hours of footage recorded within the previous 45 days in a maximum search area of 0.5 square miles (1.3 km2) for each request.

[72][73] In July 2022, Amazon stated to in a letter to Markey that it had released footage without user permission at least eleven times so far in 2022—the company's first public confirmation that it has done so.

[74] TechHive gave the second-generation Ring doorbell a 4 out of 5, noting improvements in hardware and ease of installation over the first-generation model, but criticizing a lack of printed and online documentation.

However, these discoveries did lead to concerns over the use of such footage in material deemed to effectively be advertising, as well as concerns over other possible uses of the footage (such as for training facial recognition) due to the wide copyright license that users must grant to in order to use Neighbors (an irrevocable, unlimited, and royalty-free license to use shared content "for any purpose and in any media formats in any media channels without compensation to you"), and Ring's partnerships with local law enforcement agencies.

[75][76] Digital rights advocacy group Fight for the Future criticized Ring for using its cameras and Neighbors app to build a private surveillance network via partnerships with local law enforcement agencies, which encourage them to promote the products.

[77][78] According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Ring used these partnerships and its marketing strategies to foster fear, which leads to a "vicious cycle" that spurs hardware sales.

The organization said that Ring, as well as Neighbors and similar "neighborhood watch" apps such as Citizen and Nextdoor, "facilitate reporting of so-called 'suspicious' behavior that really amounts to racial profiling.

"[79] Matt Cagle of the American Civil Liberties Union said that the Ring Neighbors Portal "blurs the line between corporate and government surveillance" and that "Many people are not going to feel like they have a choice when law enforcement asks for access to their footage".

[73] In July 2019, Vice publication Motherboard obtained records revealing the extent of Ring's partnership with the Lakeland (Florida) Police Department (LPD).

However, the memorandum of understanding stated that the LPD would be required to participate in "outreach efforts on the platform to encourage adoption of the platform/app" (receiving $10 credits for Ring camera purchases for each new user).

The policy stated: Where permitted by applicable law, you may choose to use additional functionality in your Ring product that, through video data from your device, can recognize facial characteristics of familiar visitors.

"[87][88] Also in 2019, as part of his investigation into Ring's cooperation with law enforcement, Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts probed the company's privacy policy's reference to use of facial recognition technology.

In a statement for release, the general manager of the Kyiv-based office commented, "We are no longer part of a small startup, but a full-fledged R&D center working for one of the world's largest corporations.

This metadata, combined with public city map data, is frequently sufficient to discover the exact location of the Ring doorbell or a camera.

[102] Cybersecurity firm Bitdefender identified a vulnerability in the Ring Video Doorbell Pro product in July 2019, which was patched before being publicly disclosed in November 2019.

[103][104][105] Hackers accessed a number of Ring cameras in December 2019 and used the device speakers to broadcast racial slurs, threats, and other inflammatory language to multiple households across the United States.

[111][112] On January 27, 2020, the Electronic Frontier Foundation concluded that the Ring doorbell app for Android was sending identifiable personal information– including names, IP addresses, mobile network carriers, persistent IDs, and sensor data–to AppsFlyer, branch.io, Facebook, and Mixpanel.