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Well, NIMBYism + privacy paranoia. Torontonians who were never going to live there, hadn't attended the open houses, and weren't willing to even try it as a small-scale experiment apparently had veto power over what Sidewalk could do with their own property.

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Privacy paranoia? Under what pretense should Canadians presume Google a good faith actor? Their business model has been to incrementally make the web their walled-garden fiefdom.

Why shouldn't we think that their Toronto project was anything less but an attempt to expand their iron grip into the physical world?

Ceding that much power, to a foreign entity no less, is a question of sovereignty.

Privacy is very important to some people, but I don't think it's a good argument against the project. Their collection and use of data would have been under great scrutiny. And if you don't like it, just don't move there. It was a small experiment not a takeover of the city.

AFAIK it wasn't going to be a condo-like development, with restricted access to residents-only, so anyone could walk within the Sidewalk area, and potentially be tracked, willingly or not.

They've said they won't do that, they could do that already, the benefit outweighs the cost...

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