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People have purchased - and installed - Google Home (and Mini's) and Alexa's in their homes. They think they're "cute", and offer a valuable service to them. Th
by tcd 7y ago
People have purchased - and installed - Google Home (and Mini's) and Alexa's in their homes. They think they're "cute", and offer a valuable service to them. They are a microphone controlled by data raping giants.
People use "Assistants" and enable full tracking technologies on their devices ("See how great it is Google has your every location on a map for the last decade").
People have not only accepted but embraced a full surveillance and tracking society; even if YOU don't accept it, you're part of it, people may add your contact to their phone that will be gobbled up in seconds by Facebook/Google/et al.
People don't care. End of story.
- nannal 7y agoThey don't need to deduce anything, I'm already doing that when I visit the bathroom.
- danShumway 7y agoI don't think it is. The difference is that Gmail/Amazon aren't hated the same way as Facebook is. People aren't smart about surveillance, they're not smart enough to realize that giving Instagram access to their phone is a bad idea. But, there are 2 perfectly capable home assistants on the market today that (right or wrong) aren't part of the same consumer-level narrative about privacy, and people like simple, straightforward, black-and-white narratives, like "Facebook cameras in your house are watching your child so that targeted ads can turn them into a nazi." That's a simple story, it's easy to remember and think about. Even ordinary, privacy-uneducated users like that story. It's totally feasible to me that this device will flop due to privacy concerns. Scanning around quickly online, I can't see a single positive review (even from mainstream publications) that doesn't end with, "but of course Facebook is evil and you'd have to be stupid to trust them with a camera in your house." I suspect Facebook just lost the narrative on this. They should have called it "Instagram Portal", and then the consumer situation would be completely different. Most of my siblings have Alexa devices in their house. It's a privacy nightmare, but they don't care. Even so, none of them would be dumb enough to buy a Facebook portal. It's not even a sacrifice -- Alexa/Google work with more devices and have more features.
- matz1 7y ago>People aren't smart about surveillance, they're not smart enough to realize that giving Instagram access to their phone is a bad idea I've seen this argument a lot, the issue is not people are not smart enough but people have different value toward privacy. I understand tech and yet I'm fine and even supporting this kind of tech. I understand its really hard and sucks to be in the side where you think is nightmare but other people think is not an issue. But thats the reality, people can have different value.
- umanwizard 7y agoWhy is owning an Echo device any more of a privacy nightmare than owning a smartphone? The Echo is not always listening/recording; it is activated by a wake word.
- input_sh 7y agoSo, in other words, Echo is always listening for that wake word?
- umanwizard 7y agoSort of. AFAIK it's listening with a dedicated circuit that only recognizes the specific word, not with a general-purpose listening device. Again, how is this different from a smartphone that will wake up when you say "Hey Siri" ?
- myrakle 7y agoThere were multiple instances of Echo waking up when the user didn't utter the wake word.
- umanwizard 7y agoAnd smartphones are immune to misrecognizing "Hey, Siri" ?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]