Big majorities of Americans think tech companies are too big and too nosy and want government to rein them in, an exclusive poll by Axios and the Illinois Institute of Technology finds.

Why it matters: As technology's role in American life increases, people on both sides of today's political divide have grown wary of its influence.

Ring, the Amazon-owned doorbell and security camera device, now works with 2,000 police departments across the country. But the footage downloaded by those agencies is less than one might expect, according to a new audit from New York University's Policing Project.

Why it matters: The company has come under fire for a number of practices including its privacy policies, economic relationships with police agencies and its role in helping create and grow the surveillance state.

The Biden administration on Thursday announced a global initiative aimed to prevent authoritarian governments from using technology for surveillance and human rights abuses, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Why it matters: Many authoritarian governments rely on imported technology to implement state surveillance networks.

The Federal Communications Commission voted Tuesday to revoke authorization for China Telecom's U.S. subsidiary to operate in America, citing national security concerns.

Why it matters: The state-owned China Telecom is one of the largest telecommunications companies based in China. It has provided services in the U.S. for nearly 20 years but must now cease operations within 60 days.

Amazon added an experimental home robot to its line of Alexa-powered devices as part of a broad hardware launch that also included a home security drone and a combination projector/video chat device designed to bring kids closer to remote relatives by letting them play and read together.

The big picture: As usual, Amazon's fall lineup includes updates and extensions to its mainstream products as well as niche devices that push the envelope.

Retailers have a new edge for fighting theft: They're using technology to disable stolen goods — from iPhones to Black & Decker drills — and render them useless.

Why it matters: Organized retail crime has a considerable affect on retailers every year, costing them an average of $719,000 per $1 billion dollars in sales, according to estimates from the National Retail Federation.

Israeli cybersecurity company NSO Group has become a pernicious version of Steve Urkel, never acknowledging the calamity that its software seems to cause. Unlike the old TGIF character, however, NSO's consequences are very real and enabled by private equity.

Driving the news: An international journalistic consortium, in partnership with Amnesty International, this week reported that a piece of NSO software, called Pegasus, was used by used by governments to spy on journalists, lawyers, human rights activists and world leaders.

French President Emmanuel Macron and 13 other world leaders are among those on a list of suspected surveillance targets of NSO spyware, the Guardian reported Tuesday.

Catch up quick: The Pegasus Project investigation reported that Israel-based cybersecurity firm NSO Group's spyware had been planted on the phones of heads of state, journalists, activists and lawyers across the world.

Amateur internet sleuths have launched a massive online manhunt for Capitol rioters, Bloomberg reports.

State of play: After the Jan. 6 riots, the FBI saw a 750% increase in daily call and electronic tips to its main hotline and have brought charges against more than 400 rioters.

Facebook says that its services were interrupted 84 times in 19 countries in the second half of last year, compared to 52 disruptions in eight countries that took place during the first half of the year. That's a symptom of a growing trend among countries to restrict access to social media and the open internet.

Why it matters: Government censorship, whether through complete blackouts or laws limiting certain types of content, is a growing threat to the notion of the internet as an open global network.