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Google's Next Step in Real-Time Surveillance

posted by n1 on Thursday November 06 2014, @03:03AM   Printer-friendly
from the hunt-the-consumer dept.

An anonymous coward writes with an article from PandoDaily:

Nest plans to offer its smart thermostat to Irish consumers for free when they sign up for a two-year contract with Electric Ireland. Nest chief executive Tony Fadell said at the Web Summit in Dublin that the deal could put his company’s thermostats in up to 1.6 million homes, according to CNET, and claimed that similar deals would be announced for other countries in the future.

[...] Google is infamous for its ability to offer consumers products which are paid for not by their users but by the ads those users see. Its products are among the best in their categories, and when it’s free to use them, there’s little reason for consumers to pay for another service. Now Google is just applying that same logic to the real world — and it will probably work out for it just as well.

Even I’ve grown sick of hearing this sentiment, but it’s more relevant now than ever: If you aren’t the one paying for a service, you are the product.

 
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  • (Score: 1) by SecurityGuy on Thursday November 06 2014, @05:41PM

    by SecurityGuy (1453) on Thursday November 06 2014, @05:41PM (#113584)

    I didn't used to worry so much about disclosing my location online but the last time I did give permission, the website pinpointed me to within roughly thirty feet to where I actually was.

    That's your browser, actually. I've written code to do this, and you simply request the browser hand over the location data. If the user grants it, you get a lat, long, altitude, and precision. IIRC, when I did it my test browser didn't report altitude, and there were a bunch of other optional parameters that weren't implemented such as heading and speed. Accuracy just depends on how good a GPS fix your device gets. On the bottom floor of a 2 story building, I'd often get 100+ meters. Outside with a clear view of the satellites, I'd often get less than 7 meters, which is on par with your roughly 30 feet.