
Nest, Google and you - justhw
https://nest.com/blog/2014/01/13/nest-google-and-you/
======
nakedrobot2
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.

~~~
runjake
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.

~~~
sliverstorm
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.

~~~
yapcguy
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...](http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/11/why-
the-climate-corporation-sold-itself-to-monsanto.html)

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

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

------
mlyang
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.

~~~
mhurron
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.

~~~
wmf
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.

~~~
manicdee
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?

------
wonderyak
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.

~~~
vdaniuk
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.

~~~
mdavidn
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-october-30-2013/jon-stewart-
looks-at-floaters)

[http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-
april-18-2012/moneygal...](http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-
april-18-2012/moneygall---google-gets-fined)

[http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-
january-31-2012/indeci...](http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-
january-31-2012/indecision-2012---pander-express---barack-obama-s-online-town-
hall)

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

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

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

------
michalu
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.

------
coldcode
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.

~~~
MartinCron
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.

~~~
dale386
...a very niche market for techies who are aware of and take issue with
Google's privacy issues.

~~~
MartinCron
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.

------
encoderer
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.

~~~
kyrra
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.

------
k-mcgrady
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.

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

~~~
notacoward
Thank you, Google employee.

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

~~~
cromwellian
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.

~~~
notacoward
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?

~~~
cromwellian
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.

~~~
webmaven
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.

~~~
notacoward
+100

------
Steko
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...](http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/13/5305430/interview-tony-fadell-nest-
google-acquisition)

------
dude_abides
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 :)

------
wil421
So how long till a nest starts collecting my neighbors ssid's or location info
and phoning Home?

------
anqo
I fear Google+ integration coming soon.

------
alberth
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?

------
vonskippy
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.

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

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

------
suprgeek
<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).

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

------
jblow
Start the Nest shutdown clock ... 18 months?

