[hgjwq]

>“The on-device microphone was never intended to be a secret and should have been listed in the tech specs,” a Google spokesperson said. “That was an error on our part.”

I don't know, it sounds believable. Maybe they put it there "just in case", but didn't want to put it in the list of specifications because it had no software support, and having it there would've mislead customers who could've thought the microphone was functional software-wise.

[013a]

It is believable. But that doesn't mean they shouldn't be reamed like crazy for it, including fines. There's a difference between "this was an act of god accident" and "we created the environment where this accident was allowed to happen".

Let me throw this at you. They shipped hardware with an incomplete spec sheet. Probably by accident. What's the probability that they ship software with incorrect behavior? Like, say, the software on the device? Software which could engage the microphone and send it to a remote server? At their scale, this is possible to mess up, with all of the abstraction layers and number of customers they're dealing with.

Google is the most careless company to ever reach the level of success that they have, possibly tied with Facebook. They need to be slapped, HARD, by some government, or else we'll never see the true institutional change necessary for a company of their power.

[yardie]

They could have done what every console maker has been doing since the 80s. List the expansion port, say it’s for future use, and leave its use optional.

[unionpivo]

It's possible that google does it differently than other electronics devices manufacturers that I worked for, but I can't imagine someone putting something like this on device without some concrete plans on how it will be used.

[HALtheWise]

The obvious reason for it existing is to serve as a glass breaking alarm, something that might have been part of the planned specs, and listed on the spec sheet, when they finalized the hardware design but they couldn't get working for launch. That's a very real feature people want their security systems to have, and forgetting to add "a disabled microphone, IMU, bluetooth and FM radios, and probably some other random chips privacy-obsessed people will care about" back onto the spec sheet is a really easy mistake to make, especially a few years ago when Nest mostly had user trust.

To be clear, I don't know exactly what chips modern electronics contain that we will worry about in a couple years, but all of the above seem like plausible things.

[FakeComments]

“Unexpectedly smart” and “hidden, software enable-able features” are both anti-features of security hardware.

I don’t think Google deserves the benefit of the doubt anymore: these untruths happen with every product, and they’re always in Google’s favor. There’s a consistent pattern of Google specifications, documentation, etc being knowingly untrue.

The only “error” is Google got caught deceiving people, again.

[dpark]

It may be true that Google no longer deserves the benefit of the doubt. The hyperbolic “every product” doesn’t help your case, though. Claiming that they engage in misleading behavior with every product, especially with no supporting evidence or examples, makes it look like you just have an axe to grind.

[FakeComments]

You are correct, let me list the Google services I’ve experienced deception from Google on:

YouTube, GMail, Google search, Google Docs, Google Drive, Google ads (both selling and buying), and GCP.

To me, that seems like every core product they offer, and so a little hyperbole is appropriate when calling out the misconduct of a gigacrime[0] syndicate.

It is, however, very HN to say I was too hyperbolic and mean to the gigacrime supyndicate.

[0] I mean this in the technical sense — I believe YouTube has committed over 1 billion acts of copyright infringement for profit, given that Google’s editorializing removes their safe harbor coverage. I believe other parts of Alphabet have similarly engaged in “scaled petty crime”.

Edit to footnote: I do want to say, I don’t think Google is unique in this category — and it should be taken partly as a criticism of corporate governance (particularly American), rather than Google in particular, that any business is allowed to operate that way.

[cube2222]

You've just listed a bunch of services, in no way have you described how they use deceptive strategies in them.

[rum3]

The whole purpose of all these Google services is to collect private data. Very few people actually realize the scope and power of the data they are collecting and how it is used, and how they plan to use it when they will have the technical capability. If they would have it written out in clear text exactly what they do with this data, and what they can do with it in the future then nobody would use their services. Therefore all these services are deceptive.

[FakeComments]

Because I don’t care to.

It’s easy enough to Google literally any of them and read substantial numbers of articles on their practices:

For example, AdWords misrepresents clicks by slow rolling fraud mitigation and Google is quite deceptive about what various statistical measures and advertising practices actually deliver.

As another, YouTube has a quasi-DMCA process while feigning that it’s a safe harbor purveyor of information, while in fact maintaining an editorialized anthology. This quasi-DMCA process is frequently used to steal ad revenue from creators through acts of fraud which Google’s automated systems and lack of human support (intentionally) don’t mitigate.

It’s just not worth my morning to document all of it, because it’s literally a story a week for years. And a dozen stories a week for the past few years.

[eli]

What do you think was the secret nefarious purpose for this hardware?

[rum3]

To develop some opt-out feature in the future that will record audio as often as possible, activated by an update with this information hidden behind a long wall-of-text terms of service that nobody will read.

[FakeComments]

Nothing, I think it was hardware that was included because they might one day add a feature which used it, under the belief that customers would want that.

What I think is nefarious is not informing customers about that latent capability, because denying customers that information increased sales (eg, by not informing people who would be concerned by the mic).

A lie of omission for “good intentions” often is actually just denying the other person the information that they need to make an informed decision, for your own benefit.

That seems to be what Google did here.

[untog]

I actually agree that it almost definitely wasn't something nefarious. But it speaks to a general lack of awareness of Nest's part about privacy and customer expectations - was there really no-one in a position of power who could have said "this is bad for customer trust"?