Google Compelled Nest Users To Use Its Accounts, Raising Another Privacy Concern

As we know, Google has had to kiss the Nest smart home ecosystem goodbye. At its yearly I/O conference, the company a grand restructuring of the initial plan. The Google Nest will replace the Google Home brand name, as we know.

However, in another announcement, Google said that the program called Works with Nest was over, meaning no third-party company can develop anything in the ecosystem of Nest anymore.

To replace that plan, the company put forward another called Works with Google Assistant that companies can join to ensure that their products are compatible with any Nest product.

This step comes as no surprise. Google has a grander plan to put every single device under the control of Google Assistant, and this change is just the next step that needs to be taken.

Google did say about what it does to solve the privacy concern. Here is what Variety reported:

However, Google recently has another idea.

Privacy is a hot topic on the Internet right now. Just last month, Bloomberg reported that Amazon had its employees listen to recordings captured by Echo to improve the ability of Alexa.

A few days ago, the company was under fire again for the information that it also kept recordings of your voice transcription to develop its AI algorithms further, and users cannot delete them.

Facebook, the social network notorious for the data breach, revealed that even when users inactive their accounts, it still could track their activities. Google was in a similar scandal last year when it turned out that it could know where users were even when they had turned the Location History off. So in this situation, its intention to bring all users of Nest to Google is not exactly treated with a positive attitude.

The convenience this plan brings is undeniable, but the risk is real too. If users do what Google said, they may fall into a similar situation as when Facebook acquired Instagram and WhatsApp.

More importantly, Google said that users who do not do what it advised might not have connected experience it offers in time to come. So from the look of it, the company is rewarding the kind of behavior it likes with better services from the company and gives out a penalty to those who decide to do otherwise.

To assure users of the privacy they can have, Google said that they would be straightforward about the way they collect information. Users would also have the choice to know what the company had harvested and delete what they do not want anyone else to know. However, the promise of more personalized service, as well as more correctly targeted ads, is why we need to call for more privacy measures.