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Nest, Google and you

nest.com

79 pointsjusthw86 comments

I'm sorry but I am imagining the whole article without reading it, and thinking of all the platitudes and assurances about things that they really have no control over... How about an honest acquisition blog post? "We are cashing out. We hope that they won't flush us down the drain. We are part of Google's unstoppable march towards tracking and logging all human activity as we approach the technological singularity, which Google is quickly approaching, if the NSA do not beat them to it." How about something like that for a change?

Edit: Ok, I read it. Yes, it was the blog post I was imagining.

I mean this without any snark, but you can't really cash out without playing the game, and then meeting the requirements of the cash out agreement.

I'm sure it's in the agreement somewhere that Fadell must essentially assure existing Nest customers -- regardless of what's going to really happen.

From Fadell's post:

  Our privacy policy clearly limits the use of customer
  information to providing and improving Nest’s products 
  and services. We’ve always taken privacy seriously and 
  this will not change.

This is a useless statement. Once Google owns it, they could perceive that "improving" your Nest experience is to hook it up to Google+, or insert/parse your Google Calendar for silly events, or serve you customized ads based on how frequently you move past the IR sensor, or the temps you prefer, or something silly like that.

Page can do whatever the hell he wants with Nest. And with him paying $3.2B for it, I imagine he has some ideas already.

Right, that's such a weasel statement. It jumps right out at me- there's just about nothing they couldn't justify under terms like that with a little visit to the Spin Doctor's office.

It's nowhere near as bad or ridiculous as what David Friedberg, ex-Googler, and CEO of the Climate Corporation wrote when he revealed that he had sold the company to it's very own archenemy... Monsanto.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/11/why-t...

Will be quite interesting to see how many programmers and scientists jump ship over the next year. Might explain the sudden recruitment drive.

Or Al climate-change Gore selling Current.TV to a major oil producer.

I'm sure it's in the agreement somewhere that Fadell must essentially assure existing Nest customers -- regardless of what's going to really happen.

And more importantly, reassure potential Nest customers that it's still a great idea to buy a Nest.

I think the biggest takeaway regardless of what their blog post say is that Privacy Policies can (and will) be changed down the line.

Will Nest customer data be shared with Google? Our privacy policy clearly limits the use of customer information to providing and improving Nest’s products and services. We’ve always taken privacy seriously and this will not change.

This phrasing is pretty ambiguous/vague if you ask me. "Taking privacy seriously" will not change-- though I'm sure few behemoth Internet companies, including Google, would say that they don't take privacy seriously.

I think the best summary of Nest's answer is: Yes, we will share customer data with Google. But we'll take it seriously.

If they're being acquired it's now Google's data. So the question "Will Nest customer data be shared with Google?" is asking "Will Google share Google's new customer information with Google?"

The absurdity of the question should answer itself.

There will probably be a new customer agreement once the whole thing is finalized.

For many years data was actually siloed between different products within Google (probably by accident) and there was some blowback when Google announced that they were merging all of it. So the concept of internal firewalls does exist, but given that all other Google products were merged I would assume that Nest will be as well.

The concept of internal firewall did exist, until they were accidentally removed that one time.

Why would firewalls between silos continue to exist when they've already been blown away?

This seems bad writing on their part, to be honest. The question makes no sense, the answer just doesn’t sound great.

Yeah, the other answers were straightforward, and then this one was like "how can we make it sound like the answer is no when it is clearly yes?"

They will hand the data in serious disgust. ;)

It's another case of just slightly affecting your wording so that customers believe that past returns will guarantee future returns. All that is said is true for the past and the present.

(If you really want to read it in PR glasses, "this will not change" means that whatever was effective today will not change for the period up to today; in other words, the past can not be changed.)

"We (Nest the company) have a stringent privacy policy. We've (Nest the company) taken privacy seriously and our (Nest the company's) actions will not change."

Four months later, [Nest the company] is dead and a Google subsidiary dealing with home automation appears. This subsidiary is no longer bound to [Nest the company]'s promises.

> Will Nest customer data be shared with Google?

Of course it will. If Google owns Nest, then Nest's data is their data. It doesn't have to be "shared" with them, they bought it.

Also, since privacy policies generally aren't contracts that need the approval of all parties before being altered, pointing out what today's policy limits doesn't seem particularly reassuring.

The good news is that Nest owners can now be assured that they will only get porn ads when their other half steps out of the room.

Considering that Google can (and will) change the privacy policy at any time, that statement has no relevance.

A better question is "will all nest users have to get a google+ account?"

I'm betting they will.

I wonder if google will force-share your data there too in order to boost the interaction numbers.

Other "internet of things", "quantified life" or whatever failed buzzword you want to call it, has similar or identical EULA. The only thing they take seriously is astroturfing to reduce the blowback from this policy.

Serious? Serious money. 3.5 billion? insane.

Its amazing to me that the second announcement after the acquision is all about how Google won't be privvy to your data.

Seems to me that Google has completely lost control of the narrative.

A few years ago people would be talking about how great this kind of integration would be in their lives, now its just Google+ jokes.

I guess you shouldnt consider HN comments and Google+ jokes to be representative of general population or even elusive "techies" audience. Even more, HN is so different in comparison with HN a few years ago.

However, I agree with you about Google losing the control of the narrative.

Google+ has been the butt of jokes on the Daily Show since launch. If that's not "general population," then what is?

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-october-30-2013/jon-st...

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-april-18-2012/moneygal...

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-january-31-2012/indeci...

1.5 to 2 million viewers, 56% male, 45% college-educated, 37% making over $75k, almost completely aged 18-49.

While I agree that this isn't the "general population," it seems to me that this is an incredibly important demographic to Google.

The only population that matters: people with money, who are willing to throw it at shiny things without thinking too hard.

Privacy related comments and jokes are what I've seen everywhere about it.

Google has definitely lost control of their image.

I disagree. People upset with something will always be loudest. That doesn't mean the majority of people agree with the vocal portion of the community.

Most people I know, including older persons, are annoyed by Google+. So, it's not just an HN thing. Google lost its image.

I've had three older folks just this week ask me how to permanently delete their Google+ profiles. One even insisted on deleting it even though he'd never actually gone past the initial sign-in page.

A look at these two videos should dispel that notion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ccxiwu4MaJs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTq8TrA3hb4

You shouldn't limit the audience to HN. A few years ago we probably wouldn't be as concerned about privacy as we are now.

Hmmm, interesting. What I observed instead was a sad paucity of useful thinking being expressed on HN.

No cruel yet detailed dissections of the deal, no examination of the technological possibilities, or posts where people speculated on which competitors in which markets will be impacted.

Mostly statements along the lines of "I'm sorry but I am imagining the whole article without reading it", but without even the level of self awareness that this is something to be "sorry" about.

I'm not sure. Google is anti-Amazon. Amazon treats its customers great and everybody else, including employees, like shit. With Google it is the opposite: the one relationship you want to be in with Google is employee-employer. And I don't know if they would protest this characterization...

> the second announcement after the acquision is all about how Google won't be privvy to your data.

For approximately as long as it takes for the AdWords team to figure out how to mine it, and then they're absolutely privy to it because that's what Google does, is harvest and aggregate your personal data in order to sell it to advertisers and the NSA

Google and most other tech companies never sell your personal data to advertisers. Google provides advertisers an opportunity to pay to engage Google users and get a piece of their attention on Google platforms. The actual user data as in personally identifiable user data never leaves the company servers.

That's sort of irrelevant, the creepy part is that the behavioural prediction models exist at all, and are controlled by an entity whose only responsibility or duty is to generate profit

It's not 'sort of irrelevant'. The entire thesis of many arguments against Google, and specifically the comment you made above, was that they distribute your personal information to advertisers and other corporate entities. That's just not true.

Frankly, if they did that, they wouldn't make very much money. They can demand money from advertisers because they have an information advantage over everyone else. That information advantage gives them an incentive to protect your personal information. After all, if they leaked the information a competitor could use it to formulate competitive advertising profiles, which would drive down earnings.

Edit: I wanted to add a few more thoughts since I let it spin around in my mind a bit. I think if you followed the line of argument regarding Google's profit motive as a corporation, you could reach the conclusion that their users' privacy(that is, the distribution of their private information) is a prerogative of theirs to protect. Their viability as a corporation depends on their profiles being the most accurate, and on being under their sole ownership. As such, they are driven to protect them.

I would conjecture that the profit motive for their need to protect their information has led to their relatively robust consumer protection ratings by groups like the EFF[0].

--------------

0: https://www.eff.org/who-has-your-back-2013

So long as we live in an economy based on selling things, people are going to try to sell you things. They're going to do it as effectively as they can.

Advertisers have been thinking about demographics since there's been advertising. Advertisers' needs have dictated the TV shows that do and don't see the light of day for half a century. Behavior prediction models have been around for decades, now they're just better.

Are you implying that we should impose bans on technological and scientific progress?

Or that this progress should only be limited to state owned institutions?

Something can be creepy and yet have no remedy that isn't worse.

I definitely see why this is potentially creepy to some, but I think that we should also be objective and look at the track record of those companies in question.

Googles business model isn't based on doing something malicious like selling your private data to mexican drug lords, neither does Apple, Microsoft or Facebook.

The real threat is some kind of data loss (where Google has a pretty good track record) and secret wiretapping warrants issued by secret courts based on secret laws. (but even there it's not in Googles interest and they are forced by the state to comply)

I wasn't making any broader point; I just didn't like the way you engaged with the grandparent here. We need to stop reinforcing the pattern that "I don't like X => we have to do Y to try and stop X". You could just as well have engaged more constructively, asking whether they thought there was any Y that might be worth looking at.

Unless they transmit that data in the clear between their servers.

> is harvest and aggregate your personal data in order to sell it to advertisers and the NSA

Not sure if serious or a parody of a hater

>that's what Google does, is harvest and aggregate your personal data in order to sell it to advertisers and the NSA

I can't hear you over the crinkling of your massive tinfoil hat

Google+ accounts for all Nest owners. On a serious note I wonder what will founders do next. I thought they had a great chance to build next great company, like Apple. This is strange situation, Google and other big players have so much money they seem to be able to convince anyone.

Well I was going to buy one ... forget it. In fact if I had access to VC I'd want to build a competitor. Sure you're competing with Google. But being the second acquisition by someone else is still not a bad bet.

I can see a market for things that are explicitly "anything but Google" growing as more and more things like this happen. Not now, probably not next year, but soon.

...a very niche market for techies who are aware of and take issue with Google's privacy issues.

It's currently a very niche market for techies, my prediction is that it will grow to include a broader slice of people who feel uncomfortable with giving one organization that much power.

...and my mother, and the guy who works the counter at the place I get cheesesteaks.

The "Anything but Google" market is alive and well at my local Home Depot. I'd like to see them try to datalog my $20 bimetal mechanical thermostat :)

I've been researching money saving methods for an article, and many people do say that programmable thermostats can save 10% or so on heating bills, though.

I believe it for the right person, but probably not for me. I keep my place around 60F in winter, and don't use A/C in summer.

Deleted comment

http://www.paulgraham.com/ambitious.html

The way to win here is to build the search engine all the hackers use. A search engine whose users consisted of the top 10,000 hackers and no one else would be in a very powerful position despite its small size, just as Google was when it was that search engine. And for the first time in over a decade the idea of switching seems thinkable to me.

Since anyone capable of starting this company is one of those 10,000 hackers, the route is at least straightforward: make the search engine you yourself want. Feel free to make it excessively hackerish. Make it really good for code search, for example. Would you like search queries to be Turing complete? Anything that gets you those 10,000 users is ipso facto good.

That suddenly got a lot easier, when excessively hackerish just means "it's not Google and doesn't give a flying fuck about visitor stats". Imagine an artist writing their song without thinking about their audience - those are the best songs. Likewise, maybe surveying the market and doing what people want, instead of what you think they need, is a bit overrated, the road to mediocrity and ultimately failure. Well, I can hope ^^

That's pretty reductionist. I don't even think that the people on HN think that much alike with respect to each other.

Some people care (or fear, or whatever) more or less than others.

Am I the only person on Hacker News who doesn't care that Google collects data and uses it to build targeting models?

Because I really could not care less.

Suppose there was a coffee shop where, after you leave, they dust your mug for fingerprints and record what they know of your visit. And suppose they aggregate this data day after day.

Is that creepy? Yes. If I looked over my shoulder and saw the guy carefully dusting my left dishes, it would be creepy. And I'd have some choices to make. Do I boycott? Do I wear gloves for added privacy? Do I freak out about my "privacy" every time somebody mentions the coffee shop?

Or do I keep coming back, because they have products that nobody else does, and they give me a great service at no fee.

I care about my privacy. I care how it affects my life. And these things just don't. They don't. I couldn't care less about them.

Exactly why I still use their services. They provide some great services for free just to show you some targeted advertising. Plus, much of the data collection they do on you can be opted out of.

OT, slightly related.

In the threads I've read about this acquisition most of the 'anger' has centered on Google+. It's clearly not going anywhere - so what could Google do to fix it for those who despise it?

Personally I would like to see better integration for people with multiple Google accounts. I have 5 Google accounts. I don't need 5 G+ profiles. The other accounts I use only for email, a YouTube channel, and drive for business docs/spreadsheets. I should be able to tell Google I have a G+ account associated with this email address please don't force it on me on these other accounts. If Google really wants G+ to be accurate this benefits them too - 1 fully filled out profile instead of several being used for different reasons with different and inaccurate info in them.

It's amazingly sad, predictable and vapid the commentary has become.

Thank you, Google employee.

(No, not a guess. It's in their profile.)

Oh, busted. I should have hid that!

Obviously my comment must be incorrect and that HN commentary has not turned into a rather predictable bit of the following:

1. Google is in the news about a new thing 2. Mention Google Reader 3. Mention how something not obviously related to Ads is somehow going to sell your info 4. Throw in claims of giving the info knowingly to the government.

Nothing about analyzing the whole home automation or internet of things market? Nothing about competitive analysis or other perspectives.

Yes, Google has lost control of the narrative as someone else said, but it's sad had jaded and taken in by it people have become. Before you press the reply button, you know, you could choose to be different than every other web site that has comments, and add something that elevates the conversation.

Just my 2 cents.

BTW, if I wanted to just shill for Google, I'd create an anonymous profile. I obviously include lots of disclosure information so people of aware that I am an employee and can make their own judgements. There's lots of individual stuff to criticize Google on, on a case by case basis. I could list lots. I don't think knee-jerk responses that fill up these threads improve the level of discourse on the site.

I'm not trying to say you're wrong, or that your opinions are invalid, but not everyone is going to click through to every commenter's profile. When one's own company is the subject of a story, it's good form to identify potential conflicts of interest in each and every thread. As I've been told over and over again in the ethics training I have to take every year, it's important to reduce even the appearance of trying to mislead people about anything to do with the company. Does Google not require such training?

My kingdom for a .sig file, everything was easier in the era of USENET. That is the chief reason I added my disclosure to my profile was that typing it in every thread was getting tedious.

Oh God yes. The one thing I hate about the current era of technological awesomeness is how NNTP keeps getting reinvented in new contexts, and reinvented very badly at that.

For that matter, I consider a well run mailing list to be a barely adequate substitute for an NNTP group (for which we can blame Outlook), but now those are being reinvented badly as well.

+100

It's amazingly sad and predictable Google has become.

If Google was trustworthy when entering a new market or had a predictable outcome with a company like this, the commentary wouldn't appear.

From Nilay Patel's interview with Tony Fadell:

NP: Two years ago, I actually remember this really distinctly — it was a very motivating Tony quote — you told me that the whole point was to not build products, because products and services will fade away. The point was to build a really great business. That to me was Tony, that was what you guys were doing. But now you sold the business. Why?

TF: Well, we’re about creating the business. We still have a long way to go to create this business, and I‘m also not naïve to the fact that we’re going to need substantial resources to fulfill what we set out to do. This is not just spinning up a server and all of a sudden you have scale, and using other people’s infrastructure for software distribution and all this other stuff.

TF: We’ve got to fight hand-to-hand combat in retail spaces. We have to go in and literally build tons of infrastructure for customer support and servers and all those things. I want to focus on building the differentiation for our customers, not take a sideline to building infrastructure that’s not customer differentiating. When I’m busy focused on those things, the competition is starting to nip at our heels.

TF: I really want to build a great business, and I think this is the best way to build that business. If we would have kept going alone — you see every company wants to be the Nest of something, some unloved category in the home. I wanted to double down, and this is the best way to double down.

NP: Don’t say double down. It’s the kiss of death.

TF: Okay I won’t say it. I appreciate the advice.

http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/13/5305430/interview-tony-fad...

From the Q&A:

Q: Will Nest customer data be shared with Google?

A: We’ve always taken privacy seriously and this will not change.

Clever play on words. "Taking privacy seriously" will not change, but "policy on customer data being shared with Google" can obviously change :)

So how long till a nest starts collecting my neighbors ssid's or location info and phoning Home?

I fear Google+ integration coming soon.

What I still don't understand is why Google Ventures would lead a Series C round just last week and then this week Google Inc acquires them.

Why even have the Series C round at all then?

How long until Ads start showing up on your thermostat? Or on your smartphone controller app - want to change the temperature, please watch these short commercials and then we'll allow you to change your temperature settings.

"Feeling a bit warm, Sally's Soda is just three blocks away".

"Target is having a 15% off on all winter coats and jackets".

This will NOT end well.

You don't put ads on sensors or detectors. That's just stupid. Especially when you put in all this effort to convince someone to pay $200 for it.

You use data to compose your internet shadow profile. Then you wait a bit for more MBA kids to crunch the spreadsheets that then figures out where you can be best distracted with an appropriately chosen ad.

And better yet, it's not even like the shadow profiles will ever disappear if Google goes kaput one day. Three other companies will be happy to take their place. Another dozen ad-tech companies after that.

This is where we are now. People being on the internet has ruined the internet. Complete ouroboros.

Not every effing google product has ads in it. E.g. Drive.

No, some of them just collect your data to serve ads elsewhere

Yet

They could easily auction information to interested businesses. e.g., who struggles to keep their house cool through summer and might be receptive to a call, leaflet or door knock from someone selling insulation, window awnings, new cooling systems, etc. Sell the best candidate suburbs and streets to salespeople.

<Quote>

Will Nest customer data be shared with Google?

Our privacy policy clearly limits the use of customer information to providing and improving Nest’s products and services. We’ve always taken privacy seriously and this will not change.

</Quote>

This was the $3.2 billion Question.....

The answer should be more than enough to assure you that yes Google will own all data that Nest now has (or will have).

Deleted comment

You're trolling, right?

Please?

Google knows everything about you and the only difference between Google and NSA is that Google does not try to hide this fact.

Start the Nest shutdown clock ... 18 months?

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