Amazon.com was slapped with a privacy class action Thursday in Washington Western District Court over the company's handling of smart speaker recordings. The lawsuit, which alleges that Amazon's Alexa technology saves permanent recordings of users' voices without consent, is backed by Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd; Stritmatter Kessler Koehler Moore; and Thornton Law Firm.

"While Alexa is held out to resemble an ideal servant in a Victorian manor, hovering in the background, waiting patiently to do its master's bidding, that is merely a façade," the complaint says. "In reality, Alexa is more akin to an Orwellian Big Brother informant, surreptitiously collecting personal, private, and confidential conversations to bring back to its true master, Amazon—which then uses the unauthorized and unlawfully obtained information at its discretion."