Amazon's vision of sending drones to deliver packages to your door will have to wait a bit longer.
The Federal Aviation Administration issued a memo this week essentially to remind people that drones used for business purposes are still banned, TechCrunch reported. Even Amazon's free delivery service won't be a loophole based on the memo's wording.
Titling the memo "Interpretation of the Special Rule for Model Aircraft," the FAA pointed out that using drones for commercial purposes has been illegal since 2007 and remains so.
"Any operation not conducted strictly for hobby or recreation purposes could not be operated under the special rule for model aircraft. Clearly, commercial operations would not be hobby or recreation flights," said the agency, as quoted in a New York Times blog post. "Likewise, flights that are in furtherance of a business, or incidental to a person's business, would not be a hobby or recreation flight."
Flying drones purely for recreation is still legal as long as they fly below 400 feet.
But Jeff Bezos shouldn't give up hope that Amazon will be flying your packages through the air sometime in the future.
"The next generation of drones, which are truly autonomous and can navigate using sensors and code, rather than people controlling them, will be much safer than the drones we're seeing today," Ryan Calo, an assistant professor at the University of Washington School of Law, told the Times policy blog in an interview.
Calo, whose specialization is robotics and drones, said the main concern is that drones will collide in the air; however, this worry should be eased as technology advances and the robotic devices become smarter.
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