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Google Glass and Surveillance Culture
Nerval's Lobster writes "Tech journalist Milo Yiannopoulos asks the question lurking in everyone's mind about Google Glass. 'It's an audacious product for a company no one trusts to behave responsibly with our data: a pair of glasses that can monitor and record the world around you,' he writes. 'But if Glass becomes as ubiquitous as the iPhone, are we truly to believe that Google will not attempt to abuse that remarkable power?' With each new eyebrow-raising court judgment and federal fine levied against Google, he adds, 'it becomes ever more clear that this is a company hell-bent on innovating first and asking questions later, if ever. And its vision, shared with other California technology companies, is of corporate America redefining societal privacy norms in the service of advertising companies and their clients.' He feels that Google will eventually end up in some sort of court battle over Google Glass and privacy. Do you agree? Does Google Glass deserve extra scrutiny before it hits the market?"
Does Google Glass deserve extra scrutiny before it hits the market?"
No, it deserves scrutiny after it hits the market. Passing judgement before the product is even finalized is just an exercise in fearmongering (how can you judge something when you don't yet know what it does?) and smacks of prior restraint.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
They have access to soo much data for such a long period of time now.
There was the Street View wifi-network thing. But for the rest: very little abuse of power. I'ld say that they are doing a good job. Certainly better than the disasters we've seen from Apple (GPS data collection), Sony PSN (leaked almost everything), Facebook ("It's not a leak, we sold your information").
I can opt out of wearing the goggles, so I don't have to be concerned with google pushing ads into my eyeballs. I can't opt out of other people capturing me with their goggles, but this is hardly different than people collecting video in public spaces with cameraphones or more traditional video capture devices. Google themselves could pay people to wander around public spaces and collect video, surreptitiously or otherwise.
I don't really get the controversy.
Long signatures suck.
Only on Slashdot does someone who's anti-Google has to be pro-Microsoft.
There's not a single Microsoft thing in my house, and I'm concerned with everything Google is doing.
Um, that's a BIT of scaremongering... Did this idiot somehow confuse Google with Facebook? Yes, Google has had some minor screwups (and some, such as the Street View mess, could barely be considered a screwup but more of FUD from clueless users who don't understand that ANYONE can see the MAC address of a wifi AP...), but nothing as major and spectacular as Facebook's routine privacy screwups.
And yes, overall - I trust Google, as do MANY other people.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
it's all minority report. every place you look, google glass will pop up a virtual billboard for you to see.
I don't get this kind of reaction. So what if the one out of the box does this? We'll just learn to jailbreak it (if needed) and install an adblocker, or how to install Linux on it or whatever.
Sometimes I have the impression technophiles' "think of the privacy implications!" is their own version of technophobes' "think of the children!" Me, I can't wait for this kind of think to come fast enough. I've grown reading and watching science fiction showing wearable computing, bionic implants, predictive smart assistants, 24/7 in-brain HUDs etc., and dreaming of it all. Now that part of it is becoming reality, and much earlier than I thought would happen thanks to Moore's Law, all I see in technology forums is FUD, FUD, FUD. What happened that caused technologists to becomes so damn cynical since just a few years ago? Is that just old age kicking in? *sigh*
Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
Like mobile phones are opt in. Like the internet is opt in. Like submitting your CV to recruitment agencies in MS Word or even PDF format is opt in.
It may get to the point where to be a functioning member of society you "have" to wear them.
Hopefully by that stage competition has stepped in and given us other less evil options, but maybe not.
"The weirdest thing about a mind, is that every answer that you find, is the basis of a brand new cliche" -
There is nothing wrong with Google that can't be cured by the collapse of western "civilization".
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
I don't get this kind of reaction. So what if the one out of the box does this? We'll just learn to jailbreak it (if needed) and install an adblocker
Because the one out of the box does this, and most people won't have the knowledge or time to change it. Google will probably not make it easy either and will add some cheap baubles for users of unmodified glasses, who won't know or care about their privacy. And this will impact you because Google can now argue that many or even most people use their services unmodified and therefore whatever way they destroy your privacy is acceptable under "community values" and should not be legally restricted.