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Title    Google's Next Step in Real-Time Surveillance
Date    Thursday November 06 2014, @03:03AM
Author    n1
Topic   
from the hunt-the-consumer dept.
https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=14/11/06/0032216

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.

Links

  1. "article from PandoDaily" - http://pando.com/2014/11/05/google-just-removed-the-biggest-obstacle-to-its-real-world-surveillance-systems-spread/
  2. "according to CNET" - http://www.cnet.com/news/nests-new-sales-method-free-thermostat-from-electric-utility/

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