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How Nest and FitBit Might Spy On You For Cash
Nerval's Lobster writes: "Forbes offers up a comforting little story about how Nest and FitBit are planning on turning user data in a multi-billion-dollar business. 'Smart-thermostat maker Nest Labs (which is being acquired by Google for $3.2 billion) has quietly built a side business managing the energy consumption of a slice of its customers on behalf of electric companies,' reads the article. 'In wearables, health tracker Fitbit is selling companies the tracking bracelets and analytics services to better manage their health care budgets, and its rival Jawbone may be preparing to do the same.' As many a wit has said over the years: If you're not paying, you're the product. But if Forbes is right, wearable-electronics companies may have discovered a sweeter deal: paying customers on one side, and companies paying for those customers' data on the other. Will most consumers actually care, though?"
Google gives us great products and services, and minds the privacy that we actually care about. With the data they aggregate they provide services that would be possible in no other way. Google is just not creepy. You know what is creepy? The marketing company trying at great expense to sell us the idea that Google is creepy. That is creepy. Who are they?
Help stamp out iliturcy.
No.
I like using Myfitnesspal to track my calories, and Runkeeper to track my intervals. What they do with the data is their fucking business as long as I get good service. On another note, I want something that attaches to a barbell and tracks the speed of the bar and can automatically count my reps by interfacing to a strength tracker app on my phone. I know there is someone on this site that can do that.
Will they care? It all depends on the data being shared is in aggregate. I don't care if people know that the average person in my city walks a thousand steps a day, and that still has a lot of value for health care companies, and I'm happy to contribute to that. I *DO* care if they know the details about me *individually*. There is a big difference.
Just because I can hook a shark from a boat, I do no offer to wrestle it in the water.
Accessing the accelerometer does not require special privileges in Android. Any app can do it. That's your fitness tracker right there, courtesy of Google.
Two companies whose products I will never, ever buy.
I've sold my junk "ba chicka wah wah" so I'd probably take that deal.
will most customers care? no. they're, like, customers, man.
You start with the ones who don't care, give them discounts on their insurance premiums or electric bill or whatever. Over the course of a few years, you futz with the prices until it's less of a 'discount' and more 'the only way to approach the price you used to get'.
At that point, the ones who do care can either suck it up and wear whatever herd-management-solution you feel like telling them to, or they can pay (probably increasingly steeply) to maintain their precious little objections.
Remember folks - first hit of the crack pipe's free . . .
Is there ever a reason to actually register one of these products with your real name and info? Unless it's my bank, DL, or passport, I see no point in giving any of these companies real info.
Now its in the trash.
Pen & paper don't spy on me anymore when I record my workouts & food.
The pencils though... Haven't figured out how to stop them yet...
Isn't it obvious at this point that everyone who can spy on you, will? There is no legal regulation, or simple pragmatic or moral restraint.
Remember Obama saying about the NSA, 'maybe just because we can gather some data doesn't mean we should' (paraphrased). It doesn't seem like others are even thinking about it, except Mozilla.
Or should I say #IoT
Brought to you by the same losers that want you to embrace the cloud. There's got to be a certain special generation of freaks behind this nonsense. Where did these kids go to school? Stupid Land Academy? University of Retard?
Your guess is as good as mine. Where ever it was, I'm sure they have a Masters of Maker Diploma with a major in 3D printing.
The trouble with these things is that they want to "phone home" too much. For energy conservation, Nest talks to a Nest, Inc. server and tells it too much. The info it needs (outside temp, power grid load status) is freely available from read-only web sites. (Given a ZIP code, the National Weather Service site will return info in XML.) But no, it has to talk to the "cloud" and give out personal information. That's totally unnecessary.
Yes, because it can help others, you selfish bastard.
People always complain companies are greedy, but they should take a look at individuals who want a piece of the action for EVERYTHING.
What is wrong with you? Seriously? Why is everyone so greedy that a company cannot accidentally or otherwise make one cent off data you willingly contribute for the greater good?
Could you have sold that data anyway? No? Then what the hell man?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
My conventional setback thermostat allows for all the flexibility, including by-the-day scheduling, that I need. Heating season or AC season. Who needs an AI algorithm to decide my schedule? It does not self-adjust for DST, but it only shares its data with me. Even controls the whole-house humidifier. Nest products seem to be trojan horses for their real purpose: beaming personal information to the mother ship.
I'm already seeing ads for managers offering to sell me this information.
I'm not sure you realize that it's already being marketed, not "will be" marketed.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Saw this with SkyZone too. My kid got invited to a birthday party there. After driving an hour out into the middle of nowhere, I found out they make you sign a wavier. No surprise there. There's a steady stream injuries, bleeding kids, and bandaids being doled out. But buried in that wavier is permission to photograph and video tape your kid, and to use it for advertising without limitation. I quote:
It's right before the part where you are required to give them the right to spam your email account.
Don't sign, and they kick you out. Though first they give you a high-pressure sales pitch the likes of which I have not seen since a certain used car dealership back in the 70s. Didn't buy a car from him either. Oh they'll promise you the sun, the moon, the stars. All verbally. Not a word will be put in writing. But you are still expected, nay required, to sign their blanket contract.
You have to wonder about a business that doesn't care about bad publicity, about losing money, about upsetting kids let alone the parents... All in the name of getting everyone to sign blanket agreements. I have the distinct impression that I am not SkyZone's customer. I am their product. Unlike with Google, I do not think I will enjoy being SkyZone's product!
And no, I did not sign. I was kicked out. My kids were crying. The whole nine yards.
Consider that I dropped $800 less than a month later on a party for my son at one of their competitors who was far more reasonable about personal rights... What sort of business walks away from good publicity and all the money that it brings in the name of advertising rights?
Definitely made the right call. It's something to avoid like the plague.
The article is very misleading. Nest is working with some power companies which offer their customers financial incentives to allow the power company to dial back their AC units during high load times. Pepco in DC offers the same service but you have to pay for their thermostat. This isn't selling user information this is letting the power companies access their customers' thermostats if and only if that customer allows it. Nothing in the article says anything else is happening than this but states it in a very deceptive way. If the article actually had some evidence of something more nefarious it would be fine but as it is just doesn't stand up.
This is a link to the Nest program: https://nest.com/energy-partne...
Well said.
If you sell me a product, you have no business using that product to
spy on me. This is double-dipping, and it is despicable behavior on the part
of any company which would do it.
If you give me a product spying is possibly acceptable on the principle
that money must be involved somehow, sooner or later, because "free"
is a model which doesn't work.
I'll never buy a product from either of these companies,
and I intend to make sure that the people I advise
as a consultant understand what these companies are really
about.
I track my workouts with a simple stopwatch, a heart rate monitor, and
a text file.
I use a timer on my thermostat. It doesn't have an IP address nor does it need one.
All this "gotta be connected to the net" stuff is utter bullshit, and anyone who imagines
it is in any way "necessary" is a goddamned fool.
And just wait until some asshole develops a means of attacking your
thermostat remotely. You're gone for the weekend in subzero winter conditions
and you return to a house which is flooded because your pipes froze and burst.
If you think it can't happen you don't belong on this forum.
Many Interneted Thingies work fine on your own cloud. You can find alternatives that don't feed the big Googly database, but you have to shop carefully. Fitbit and Nest don't give you the option; but some of the home automation systems like Vera need no clouds at all.
John
What worries me is that the movement sensor in Nest knows when you are at home. It reports this information to the cloud after which Google sells this Big Data to 3rd parties. Now how long will it take that criminal 3rd parties take such a Big Data feed from Google to plan burglaries? Did anybody think of that? Or should we just trust the ethical sense of your Big Data owner of choice?
beta shit suck dick and stop redirecting
You don't understand. It's not incentive, it's coercition. Do your workout, _or else_...
I'm not sure that those arguing the public doesn't care really have it right. There is an apathy, no doubt, but it may just as well stem from a sense of powerlessness, as from one of detachment. "You can't fight the Man", is an ingrained ethos of our times. If it does no good to demonstrate you care, you just move on; it's not really acceptance, it's jaded fatalism.
" how Nest and FitBit are planning on turning user data IN a multi-billion-dollar business"
Americans and prepositions don't mix... Idiots.
Everyone with a Nest is probably already aware of their Energy Partners https://nest.com/ca/energy-par... program.
Instead of having your utility company cut your power in the summer when its hot out like they do some places, Nest users' thermostats pre-cool their homes in the morning to reduce energy use during peak hours as determined by the power company. This is a win-win you sign up for, not a spying act.
If you don't want Nest to know about your energy usage, just disable its wifi connection. It still works fine without it.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
No matter how cute the 'Flo' ads are, here is what drove me to never consider them: http://mattfisher.tumblr.com/p... I do understand what you said about insurance but I think the reality of what happens behind the curtains is more revealing... and disturbing.