
The department was granted access to a "Law Enforcement Neighborhood Portal" for making posts on Neighbors and the ability to "request videos directly from Ring users," and received a donation of 15 Ring cameras. In July 2019, Vice publication Motherboard obtained records revealing the extent of Ring's partnership with the Lakeland (Florida) Police Department (LPD).

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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. Ring stated that it sought permission from the user before using their content in this manner. In June 2019, Ring faced criticism over a "Community Alert" program, under which the company has made geographically-targeted sponsored posts on social media services such as Facebook, asking readers to provide tips on suspects in verified cases, based on imagery posted on the Neighbors service by a Ring customer. In addition, The Intercept reported that the video data was stored unencrypted. In January 2019, it was uncovered that employees at Ring's two offices had access to the video recordings from all Ring devices. In February 2018, Ring was acquired by Amazon for an estimated value of between $1.2 billion and $1.8 billion. The company raised over $200 million in investments from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Qualcomm Ventures, Goldman Sachs, DFJ Growth and Sir Richard Branson. In 2016, Shaquille O'Neal acquired an equity stake in Ring, and subsequently became a spokesperson in the company's marketing. After being on Shark Tank, Siminoff rebranded the company, which received $5 million in additional sales. Kevin O'Leary made an offer as a potential investor but Siminoff declined it.
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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. Doorbot was crowdfunded via Christie Street, and raised US$364,000, more than the $250,000 requested. In 2013, Ring was founded as Doorbot by Jamie Siminoff.


4.5 Warrantless video provided to police.4.4 Allegations of trademark infringement.1.2 Subsidiary of Amazon (2018–present).
