
Google's Sidewalk Labs plans private taxation, cops, judges, punishes privacy - throwaway2048
https://boingboing.net/2019/10/30/citizen-scores-eh.html
======
EdTsft
I think the Globe and Mail article referenced at the end [0] is a much better
source. The BoingBoing article has less info and as far as I can tell their
claims that these ideas are/were planned for the Toronto development is
unsubstantiated. The globe and mail article quotes a spokesperson as stating:

"Many, if not most, of the ideas it contains were never under consideration
for Toronto or discussed with Waterfront Toronto and governments."

It's definitely concerning that Sidewalk Labs ever had (or currently has) some
of these ideas as part of their vision but it's not helpful to sensationalize
or misrepresent the actual plans for Toronto.

[0] [https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-sidewalk-
la...](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-sidewalk-labs-
document-reveals-companys-early-plans-for-data/)

------
jbob2000
We gutted most of their plan:

> restricting development to the 12-acre Quayside plot, acknowledging that an
> outside developer will have to be chosen to build the infrastructure,
> abandoning a transit line as a precondition and handing over governance of
> all data collection to Waterfront Toronto.

From [https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2019/10/31/how-
waterfront-t...](https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2019/10/31/how-waterfront-
torontos-stephen-diamond-went-up-against-sidewalk-labs-and-won.html)

------
adrianN
Did they read too much Snow Crash?

~~~
allworknoplay
Literally came here about to post an excerpt from the first chapter. Anyway,
yeah like how do you wind up this cartoonishly orwellian?

Sidewalk’s stated goal with data collection in this project is (roughly) to
learn, run experiments, and figure out how to really run a city.

But couldn’t they have done without some of the extreme bits here in the
tiniest acknowledgement that maybe there’s a reason people like some amount of
privacy and that maybe a sudden conversion to all-private-everything isn’t as
good an experiment as they think?

