Here’s reason six million and one not to trust the Jewish-run company of Google. They just admitted that their Nest devices had secret microphones installed. They also failed to inform customers of this fact and are claiming that it was just one big mistake.
Following Google’s acknowledgement that it made a mistake by failing to mention that its Nest Guard alarm hub includes a microphone, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) has asked the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to force the ad biz to sell its Nest division and surrender data snarfed from Nest customers.
The advocacy group, in a statement, observes, “It is a federal crime to intercept private communications or to plant a listening device in a private residence.”
In a letter addressed to FTC chairman Joe Simons and the other commissioners, EPIC president Marc Rotenberg and EPIC consumer protection counsel Christine Bannan recall that their advocacy group in 2014 chided the federal watchdog agency for failing to address privacy concerns arising from Google’s Nest acquisition.
The two privacy advocates argue the FTC should have conducted a more rigorous review before allowing Google to acquire Nest and suggest the proper course is to break the two apart.
“The FTC should now commence an enforcement action against Google with the aim of divesting the company of Nest and requiring also that Google disgorge the data it wrongfully obtained from Nest customers,” the letter says.
Yeah, just one big mistake. I call bullshit on that one. Google is an enormous company with tremendous amounts of resources. There would have been an entire team responsible for overseeing the engineering and deployment of this product. So to say that a microphone was installed and hidden from customers by mistake is total bullshit. I don’t believe that story for a second. Google’s bases much of their business on data collection so the more data they collect the better it is for them. They obviously don’t give a shit how it is collected.
The government needs to come in and regulate the shit out of Google and their parent company Alphabet. But will Trump actually do anything? It looked like he was late last year, but nothing happened.
The fact that he hasn’t gone after Silicon Valley yet is ridiculous. WTF is he waiting for? How many more reasons does one need to regulate these parasitical monopolies? They’re just waiting to be broken up and dealt with. None of these companies in their current form are good for the country.
