Those cool little robot vacuum cleaners make my life so much easier. But there is going to be a big catch.
It seems that no matter where we turn our privacy is being whittled away. Your Roomba is going to be part of the “sell out.”
The device maps your house to maximize efficiency and now the iRobot CEO wants to sell those maps. “There’s an entire ecosystem of things and services that the smart home can deliver once you have a rich map of the home that the user has allowed to be shared,” said Robot CEO Colin Angle.
He argues that the aps can help Alexa, Siri and other smart home devices work more efficiently. Of course a massive side effect is one company having way too much information about you.
Now if you are thinking the terms of service will help you, no it won’t. It is vague enough, but this paragraph does you in. “We may share your personal information with] other parties in connection with any company transaction, such as a merger, sale of all or a portion of company assets or shares, reorganization, financing, change of control or acquisition of all or a portion of our business by another company or third party or in the event of bankruptcy or related or similar proceeding.”
You do have recourse! Turn off your cloud sharing system so iRobot won’t be fed the info!
Source: Gizmodo