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As someone who lives in Toronto, the collapse of this project is a great outcome. While the goals of the project seem forward thinking and could benefit society

As someone who lives in Toronto, the collapse of this project is a great outcome. While the goals of the project seem forward thinking and could benefit society in the long run (in terms of renewable building, etc) Google is 110% the wrong company to be involved. Imagine you lived there and your google account gets banned by some overzealous ML model. Do you just get locked out of your house? If Google, or any other company, wants to make this kind of development, they should be regulated as a public utility and be accountable as such

antihero 6y ago
Yep, I've been saying for ages that the big companies need to have their banning policies be public overseen and accountable if they plan on having any significant impact on our lives in this way.
- dsl 6y ago
  The last public number was that Twitter was banning 10 fake bots per second. How exactly do you plan to have a public oversight process for fighting fraud and abuse at scale?
  - thewebcount 6y ago
    Well if those bots are able to login and prove they're real people, it wouldn't be a problem. I suspect, though, with bots, they'll just create new accounts and not even bother with any sort of appeals process.
xyzzy_plugh 6y ago
My big problem from the beginning was that the money flow made no sense. Why should Toronto be paying for a Google experiment? Google benefitted far more than any other party involved, and that felt slimy.
- Guidii 6y ago
  Did money flow from the city to Alphabet? My understanding was that it was hugely in the opposite direction, with sidewalk investing alphabet money into the project.
  - jgalt212 6y ago
    right because with Google, the customer is the product.
    - KineticLensman 6y ago
      The customer (and their data) is the raw material from which products are created. E.g. an advert targeting product.
- dsl 6y ago
  Google bought 12 acres of waterfront property and was working on development. Aside from the usual level of involvement (meetings, permitting, etc) the city had no skin in the game.
  - xyzzy_plugh 6y ago
    They bought the land at a heavy discount, continued to stretch their proposal far beyond the scope of the original RFP, demanded further city investment into transit/land development in order to facilitate their idea, and proposed low-income housing that was frankly a crap deal. In the end Google would've been reaping all the profits of the development deal while the city pays to clean up the mess. It basically boiled down to somewhere between a mediocre and a pretty bad deal for the local economy, instead of letting a local developer do their thing. I wouldn't have been surprised if it ended up costing (especially if you add in the land discount and subsidies) taxpayers well over a billion dollars. The whole thing reeked of a PR stunt for the Gov working with Big Tech, but I don't know of a single citizen who thought it was a good idea. Next time, follow a fair RFP process. I'd rather have Amazon try and develop the waterfront.
tptacek 6y ago
Imagine you lived there and your google account gets banned by some overzealous ML model. Do you just get locked out of your house? No.
- theandrewbailey 6y ago
  Since Google hates passwords, I can't imagine that they would support plain old metal keys for doors. Neither can I imagine how unlocking a Google door wouldn't involve an arbitrarily closable Google account. Other incidents have shown that once your Google account is closed, Google won't talk to you.
  - oh_sigh 6y ago
    "Google must operate based on the stereotype I have of them in my head"
    - marcinzm 6y ago
      As the relationship advice goes "when someone shows you who they are believe them." Plenty documented examples of Googling acting in the stated way across various products. No reason to assume they won't act the same in this case sooner or latter.
      - oh_sigh 6y ago
        What evidence is there that "google hates passwords"? That's literally the only way to log into a google account.
        theandrewbailey 6y ago
        https://www.trustedreviews.com/news/google-fingerprint-chrome-android-3929664 https://www.trustedreviews.com/news/google-fingerprint-chrom... https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/may/24/google-passwords-android https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/may/24/google-pa...
wendyshu 6y ago
As someone who lives in Toronto, I'm disappointed we couldn't even have this as an experiment with smart city technologies. "It's time to build" and all that.
- etimberg 6y ago
  Agreed that it is unfortunate we could not have this experiment, but perhaps Waterfront Toronto can go back to the drawing board and do the experiment with local companies and homegrown technology.
  - jayparth 6y ago
    I would doubt that any company would take such a bet now. If not Google, then why would, say, Shopify stand a better chance? I'm an entrepreneur from Toronto and I won't bet the next three years on my life on a municipal government that has shown a bias against action again and again. Not even sure that data privacy killed this project. It was probably the bias against action that plagues every branch of government nowadays.
    - wendyshu 6y ago
      Indeed, quite sad. This risk aversion, or maybe inability to weigh benefits against costs, is the stagnation Thiel is always talking about.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
nisten 6y ago
I disagree with that, i think the various mix of cheap insecure IP-cameras present on any small store and elsewhere poses a far greater privacy risk than a well managed and frequently audited system one would expect from google. The cheap security cameras are relatively trivial to gain access too at scale and you can run facial recognitioning on their video with zero accountability. At least with google and facebook you get a non-zero level of accountability.You can still summon their CEO in front of the public somewhere for questioning. Or if you're an EU citizen you can demand you data be wiped off. You can't practically do that with an insecure patchwork of security cameras. This is why I think the privacy concerns for this project were quite misguided. In my opinion it's better to go with a single choice of where security video with identifiable faces is going instead of having no clue who's tracking you. I'm not personally happy that that choice is Google given their screwup with nest and with 3rd-party dev access to gmail, however I think the practical outcome is a lot worse when not choosing anything at all.

antihero 6y ago

Yep, I've been saying for ages that the big companies need to have their banning policies be public overseen and accountable if they plan on having any significant impact on our lives in this way.

dsl 6y ago
The last public number was that Twitter was banning 10 fake bots per second. How exactly do you plan to have a public oversight process for fighting fraud and abuse at scale?
- thewebcount 6y ago
  Well if those bots are able to login and prove they're real people, it wouldn't be a problem. I suspect, though, with bots, they'll just create new accounts and not even bother with any sort of appeals process.

xyzzy_plugh 6y ago

My big problem from the beginning was that the money flow made no sense. Why should Toronto be paying for a Google experiment? Google benefitted far more than any other party involved, and that felt slimy.

Guidii 6y ago
Did money flow from the city to Alphabet? My understanding was that it was hugely in the opposite direction, with sidewalk investing alphabet money into the project.
- jgalt212 6y ago
  right because with Google, the customer is the product.
  - KineticLensman 6y ago
    The customer (and their data) is the raw material from which products are created. E.g. an advert targeting product.
dsl 6y ago
Google bought 12 acres of waterfront property and was working on development. Aside from the usual level of involvement (meetings, permitting, etc) the city had no skin in the game.
- xyzzy_plugh 6y ago
  They bought the land at a heavy discount, continued to stretch their proposal far beyond the scope of the original RFP, demanded further city investment into transit/land development in order to facilitate their idea, and proposed low-income housing that was frankly a crap deal. In the end Google would've been reaping all the profits of the development deal while the city pays to clean up the mess. It basically boiled down to somewhere between a mediocre and a pretty bad deal for the local economy, instead of letting a local developer do their thing. I wouldn't have been surprised if it ended up costing (especially if you add in the land discount and subsidies) taxpayers well over a billion dollars. The whole thing reeked of a PR stunt for the Gov working with Big Tech, but I don't know of a single citizen who thought it was a good idea. Next time, follow a fair RFP process. I'd rather have Amazon try and develop the waterfront.

tptacek 6y ago

Imagine you lived there and your google account gets banned by some overzealous ML model. Do you just get locked out of your house? No.

theandrewbailey 6y ago
Since Google hates passwords, I can't imagine that they would support plain old metal keys for doors. Neither can I imagine how unlocking a Google door wouldn't involve an arbitrarily closable Google account. Other incidents have shown that once your Google account is closed, Google won't talk to you.
- oh_sigh 6y ago
  "Google must operate based on the stereotype I have of them in my head"
  - marcinzm 6y ago
    As the relationship advice goes "when someone shows you who they are believe them." Plenty documented examples of Googling acting in the stated way across various products. No reason to assume they won't act the same in this case sooner or latter.
    - oh_sigh 6y ago
      What evidence is there that "google hates passwords"? That's literally the only way to log into a google account.
      - theandrewbailey 6y ago
        https://www.trustedreviews.com/news/google-fingerprint-chrome-android-3929664 https://www.trustedreviews.com/news/google-fingerprint-chrom... https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/may/24/google-passwords-android https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/may/24/google-pa...

wendyshu 6y ago

As someone who lives in Toronto, I'm disappointed we couldn't even have this as an experiment with smart city technologies. "It's time to build" and all that.

etimberg 6y ago
Agreed that it is unfortunate we could not have this experiment, but perhaps Waterfront Toronto can go back to the drawing board and do the experiment with local companies and homegrown technology.
- jayparth 6y ago
  I would doubt that any company would take such a bet now. If not Google, then why would, say, Shopify stand a better chance? I'm an entrepreneur from Toronto and I won't bet the next three years on my life on a municipal government that has shown a bias against action again and again. Not even sure that data privacy killed this project. It was probably the bias against action that plagues every branch of government nowadays.
  - wendyshu 6y ago
    Indeed, quite sad. This risk aversion, or maybe inability to weigh benefits against costs, is the stagnation Thiel is always talking about.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

nisten 6y ago

I disagree with that, i think the various mix of cheap insecure IP-cameras present on any small store and elsewhere poses a far greater privacy risk than a well managed and frequently audited system one would expect from google. The cheap security cameras are relatively trivial to gain access too at scale and you can run facial recognitioning on their video with zero accountability. At least with google and facebook you get a non-zero level of accountability.You can still summon their CEO in front of the public somewhere for questioning. Or if you're an EU citizen you can demand you data be wiped off. You can't practically do that with an insecure patchwork of security cameras. This is why I think the privacy concerns for this project were quite misguided. In my opinion it's better to go with a single choice of where security video with identifiable faces is going instead of having no clue who's tracking you. I'm not personally happy that that choice is Google given their screwup with nest and with 3rd-party dev access to gmail, however I think the practical outcome is a lot worse when not choosing anything at all.