The slide presentation—which is titled “Digital Neighborhood Watch” and was created in 2017, according to Ring—tells people that if they set up these groups, report all suspicious activity to police, and post endorsements of Ring products on social media, then they can get discount codes for Ring products and unspecified Ring “swag.”

Ring, Amazon’s home security company, has encouraged people to form their own “Digital Neighborhood Watch” groups that report crime in exchange for free or discounted Ring products, according to an internal company slide presentation obtained by Motherboard.

A Ring spokesperson told Motherboard in an email that the program described in the slide presentation was rolled out in 2017, before Ring was acquired by Amazon. They said it was discontinued that same year.

“This particular idea was not rolled out widely and was discontinued in 2017,” Ring said. “We will continue to invent, iterate, and innovate on behalf of our neighbors while aligning with our three pillars of customer privacy, security, and user control.”

“Some of these ideas become official programs, and many others never make it past the testing phase,” Ring continued, adding that the company “is always exploring new ideas and initiatives.”

Ring did not specify how many people the company showed the slide presentation to, and under what circumstances. However, the presentation predates the existence of Neighbors—Ring’s “neighborhood watch” app, which launched in May 2018, shortly after Ring was acquired by Amazon.

The slide presentation, provided to Motherboard by a source, but also stored publicly on Ring's website, demonstrates that the company has a broad definition of “suspicious activity,” and encourages all suspicious activity to escalate to calling the police. It also shows that Ring’s marketing strategy centrally includes building a network of surveillance facilitated by private residents choosing to surveil themselves and their neighbors.