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Comment by lziest | Hacker News Reader

rather "never sell directly", what about "share"? Form a new company that gains shared access to data and ... profit.

What I don't understand how anyone would profit from this data.

What are the top 3 ways a business could make money off it?

How many rugs does the average person have in their home? Is it in any relation to the amount and shape of furniture? If we shape our tables a certain way, are people more likely to buy our rugs to go with them? What's the average size of a rug in a person's home? etc

How much free space is there in the user's home? Can we target them with furniture ads? If they have a lot of furniture, can we target them with reupholstery or furniture polish or other such maintenance ads?

Do they have a big home? Do they have a small home? I'm sure this is valuable for advertising reasons as well.

How often do they clean their home? If they're cleaning all the time, maybe we should target them with ads for professional cleaners. If they rarely clean their home, there's probably something of value that can be learned from that too.

Interestingly enough, this isn't possible at the moment, but probably possible in the future. I own a (edit: 980) and they do actually detect when they're on a carpet/rug (they turn on a carpet mode that is basically just sucking twice as hard). However, there is no indication they're saving this data (the maps don't give any information of where Roomba thinks there's carpet, and there's always a delay in the carpet mode when it enters the carpet so its not learning that).

Its these kinds of things that lead me to sort of trust the CEO here with current products. Even after 2 months the map isn't very accurate and the user can manipulate the data (the map gives no indication between walls, the blockers it comes with, and closed doors).

Probably will keep close attention to see if they ever make any upgrades though.

Exactly. Roomba has left themselves a lot of latitude by simply saying they they will never "sell" the data. What they should say is, they will never transfer the unencrypted data to a third party, and will never enable a third party with the encrypted data to decrypt it.

> What they should say is, they will never transfer the unencrypted data to a third party, and will never enable a third party with the encrypted data to decrypt it.

Doesn't really work... they can send the encrypted data to Y and the encryption key to Z so that Y and Z can make their own agreements.

That's (sadly) entirely too specific and technical for general communication. The more specific you get, the more someone will wonder if there's a loophole.

Rightfully so! Why, already under the terms of your parent, we can imagine the company transferring your data encrypted with rot13.

What, they broke the encryption and got your data!? Mercy me, how terrible, we sure didn't enable them to do that!

They do say they will never share with 3rd party without consent, and will delete any data collected on request.

https://homesupport.irobot.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/964/~...

Full disclosure: I am a former iRobot Engineer

From that URL:

    "...nothing will be shared without the permission of our customers."

That is already a lie. If required by a court order to do so, they will absolutely share without the permission of their customers.

Fair enough, though I do think calling it put as a lie is a bit strong, in the context of the FAQ linked since I read it as third-parties meaning other private companies, not government agencies in response to a legal request. (That may be my bias since I worked there, know the culture, and still have plebty of friends there).

I can absolutely see your point, and would say that they do have actual legal pages on their privacy policy and data security measure, which mentions that they will respond to a legal subpoena, and that you can at any time request that your personal data be deleted, which theu will do.

Again, look you can think I'm full of it amd take this with a huge grain of salt, since I did worm there. All I can tell you is that the people who worked there and started that company are there to make cool robots, not to be personal data brokers or an advertising company, and any conversations we had when I was there were about how we could make things work with other services and do neat smart home stuff, while keeping peoples information safe and privacy intact, not about how we can make money off of peoples data.

(apologies for the typos, small phone screen and fat fingers!)

Replied to a child post of this already, but in case you missed, they specifically said they won't share data either without first obtaining informed consent. (Full disclosure - former iRobot engineer)

https://homesupport.irobot.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/964/~...

You can also "lease" or "rent" data. Or provide service to run arbitrary analytics on data that stays in-house.

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