CEO says iRobot will never sell your data

http://www.zdnet.com/article/exclusive-roomba-ceo-responds-to-spying-story/

by rbanffy • 9 years ago

152 136 9 years ago

lziest• 9 years ago

rather "never sell directly", what about "share"? Form a new company that gains shared access to data and ... profit.

i_am_nomad• 9 years ago

Exactly. Roomba has left themselves a lot of latitude by simply saying they they will never "sell" the data. What they should say is, they will never transfer the unencrypted data to a third party, and will never enable a third party with the encrypted data to decrypt it.

wfunction• 9 years ago

What they should say is, they will never transfer the unencrypted data to a third party, and will never enable a third party with the encrypted data to decrypt it.

Doesn't really work... they can send the encrypted data to Y and the encryption key to Z so that Y and Z can make their own agreements.

JoshTriplett2• 9 years ago

That's (sadly) entirely too specific and technical for general communication. The more specific you get, the more someone will wonder if there's a loophole.

TFortunato7• 9 years ago

They do say they will never share with 3rd party without consent, and will delete any data collected on request.

https://homesupport.irobot.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/964/~...

Full disclosure: I am a former iRobot Engineer

BurningFrog• 9 years ago

What I don't understand how anyone would profit from this data.

What are the top 3 ways a business could make money off it?

lghh• 9 years ago

How many rugs does the average person have in their home? Is it in any relation to the amount and shape of furniture? If we shape our tables a certain way, are people more likely to buy our rugs to go with them? What's the average size of a rug in a person's home? etc

yurymik• 9 years ago

You can also "lease" or "rent" data. Or provide service to run arbitrary analytics on data that stays in-house.

TFortunato7• 9 years ago

Replied to a child post of this already, but in case you missed, they specifically said they won't share data either without first obtaining informed consent. (Full disclosure - former iRobot engineer)

https://homesupport.irobot.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/964/~...

lettergram• 9 years ago

It's actually interesting to me that they explain what they store:

"The Roomba 900 Series vacuuming robots capture mapping and navigation information via vSLAM, which stays on the robot. On all WiFi-enabled Roombas, usage data (e.g. how long did it clean, how far did it go, did it encounter any error codes, is it functioning correctly) can be sent to the cloud so it can be shown on the customer's mobile device. Images used for navigation are NOT sent to the cloud."

Have to give them props for being so specific. That being said.. still don't know if I trust them, and I am sitting with my Roomba 960 vacuuming under my feet lol

uptown• 9 years ago

OT, but how do you like it? The 960 is the only model which would work with my space.

freeflight• 9 years ago

"Images used for navigation are NOT sent to the cloud"

Maybe I'm just too pessimistic for my own good, but the wording on that still leaves a lot of wiggle room in how it's "images" and "cloud". Not all file formats are images and not all servers are a "cloud".

Could just as well used "data"/"upload" and covered all fronts. "Data used for navigation is not uploaded anywhere".

eridius4• 9 years ago

But data is uploaded, if you opt-in to that. If you choose to allow it, the map that the Roomba generates is uploaded to the "cloud", where it's cleaned up and made available in the iRobot HOME app. This was explained in the very next paragraph. They simply cannot say "data is never uploaded" because it's not true, but they can say "images are never uploaded" because it is.

And I wouldn't quibble about the usage of "cloud". It's generally understood that if the data is sent to a server outside of the customer's control then that's the "cloud".

TFortunato7• 9 years ago

Hey, w/o getting too specific, speaking as a former iRobot engineer when the 900s were developed / released (unofficial, not representing iRobot, blah blah ) - the privacy implications were thought of a lot when these products were developed. There really aren't any images or data that could be reconstructed / assembled into images ever sent to the cloud, persisted on the device, or available to send to the cloud.

I do understand the pessimism, especially with all the privacy horror stories you hear out there, but I can say that Colin / iRobot arent playing games with their words when it comes to this.

natch2• 9 years ago

Yep, and speaking of weasel words, "sell" is also a weasel word. There's always lease, rent, give, trade, share, expose, exploit, release, etc.

UnoriginalGuy2• 9 years ago

That seems at best misleading at worst outright untrue...

Their own cloud connected app shows a detailed layout of your home's floor plan[0]. The implication of "navigation information via vSLAM, which stays on the robot" suggests that such a floor plan could never be sent to the Roomba App, since it is, that statement is suspect.

Plus the Roomba is updatable over WiFi without user intervention. So even if the above statement is true TODAY, there's no specific reason to believe it will remain true forever. They could push an update tomorrow, start collecting data, and then let you "opt out" if you don't want your intimate personal life shared with anyone who can pay.

[0] http://i.imgur.com/6Brk5xV.png

eridius4• 9 years ago

Did you read the article? The very next paragraph explains that:

If a user agrees to having their map data viewable on their mobile device, then the map that the Roomba creates during a cleaning job is sent to the cloud where it is processed and simplified to produce a user-friendly map that ultimately appears in the iRobot HOME App.

manmal• 9 years ago

On a different note, somebody has to traffic dump those Xiaomi Mi Robots. They are very good at what they are supposed to do, but what if they have to comply with Chinese agencies by sharing image or other meaningful data?

Paul-ish2• 9 years ago

This really isn't up to iRobot Corporation or Colin if the company gets acquired. They are publicly traded, hostile take overs are possible. The promise is meaningless.

pmontra• 9 years ago

The first rule in these cases is not to collect data you don't want to get leaked.

JoshTriplett2• 9 years ago

There are ways to construct contracts that bind your future self, even through acquisitions. Most companies don't, because they care more about the flexibility of "we can change our minds at any time". But they could.

hammock2• 9 years ago

I would love to see a company put its consumer data in a trust, to be kept locked up forever in the event of an acquisition. Has this been done before? (And what happens if the trust gets acquired)

chimeracoder3• 9 years ago

Yup. It doesn't even have to be a contract in order to have legal consequences.

Wizards of the Coast made a public announcement back in the 90s that they would not reprint cards on the reserved list in Magic: The Gathering. Even though they're now owned by Hasbro, they're still afraid of a lawsuit from collectors and trading shops if they do reprints or functional reprints (because that would drop the value of existing collections, causing material damages).

They toyed with non-playable collector editions for a few years, and then even that was shut down.

Paul-ish2• 9 years ago

Good point, I don't know anything about law so I wasn't aware of this.

Maybe I can restate my comment as "This promise is meaningless, but there are meaningful promises they can make that they chose not to, and that is meaningful."

pmoriarty• 9 years ago

It's also not up to them if they get hacked.

warent• 9 years ago

Getting hacked isn't selling data. I don't understand your point.

ChuckMcM6• 9 years ago

Exactly, unless there is some 'suicide' clause in the company bylaws that says all data will be destroyed on change of ownership (which would be fiduciarily [1] irresponsible anyway) then the statement of the CEO is constrained to 'during my tenure' at best. And 'during my tenure, while we are meeting our numbers goals' at worst.

[1] I don't think that is a word but hopefully what I hope it would mean if it were a word is clear :-)

ra1n85• 9 years ago

I like that - but how would you enforce it? Wouldn't it actually just deter companies interested in acquiring out of interest in the acquisition's customer data?

SomeStupidPoint3• 9 years ago

I disagree with your assessment that it's a priori fiduciarily irresponsible [1]: it's entirely possible that the extra business gained by having a data self-destruct term would create a better financial situation for the company than having the data available to re-purpose would, and thus would be in the best interest of the shareholders. (There are similar arguments about marketplace health, etc. There's not a strict duty to generate the best financials, per se.)

As a tangent, there's also mechanisms you could use besides something in the bylaws to prevent it -- I don't think you actually need anything but restructuring the contract. (Though, obviously, bylaws or articles would carry more weight.)

[1] I like that phrase!

Hupriene• 9 years ago

There doesn't have to be any bylaw changes, there just needs to be a contract with the customer regarding the usage of their data. One of the old fashioned kinds of contracts that doesn't allow one party to make unilateral changes to it. Then if they eventually do sell the data, they invite a class action lawsuit for breach of contract.

lomnakkus• 9 years ago

I don't mean to heap on you, but do you know of any actual cases where it's happened? (Apologies, for not reading the whole thread, headed out the door...)

It seems quite interesting as a concept what a company is once it's bought and traded. What, exactly, is the precedence of interests? Is it state-first? Or owner-first? Or maybe a combination of the two?

... or am I just too drunk?

rebootthesystem• 9 years ago

The spread of personal information across myriad services is, I think, becoming a huge problem.

I recently had a case with one such services. They store personal information that could be very damaging if it got out. SSN, driver's license, name, address, phone, credit card info, etc.

I decided I no-longer needed the service and so I asked to close the account and clear all of my data from their servers and backups. I was particularly interested in the information that could be used for nefarious purposes given a data breach or a sale of the business.

They refused and gave me some bullshit reason.

I moved immediately to arbitration per their own TOS. Within a couple of days they became very responsive and have, in theory, cleared all my info from their service.

And that's the issue. How do you know? They could have lied to me just to get me to drop arbitration. Hard to know how far to pursue something like this. No company should keep information on you that you do not authorize them to keep. A consumer ought to have the right to have any and all traces of their personal data erased from databases with absolute certainty. Privacy ought to supersede everything else.

What if you want Facebook to clear all data related to your account? I don't think that's possible in the US, is it?

toufka• 9 years ago

The reason given for collecting such data is often, "for your protection" or a variant of, "to verify who you are."

And invariably, I hear about that exact data becoming exposed a few months later. It's extraordinarily frustrating that even when you articulate this viscous cycle to them, they still blindly push forward with the same efforts.

twblalock• 9 years ago

Once Facebook has data, it ends up in their database backups and potentially in their logs, and also potentially in CDN caches, so even if they deleted it from their production database it wouldn't really be gone.

This is one of those cases where it is impossible to prove a negative -- one can never prove that the data you gave to Facebook doesn't still exist somewhere, even if they look for it everywhere they can think of. Similarly, the company you entered into arbitration with might have made a good-faith effort to delete your data, but they might not have fully succeeded.

Therefore, one must assume that any data given to any company might somehow survive even if the company attempts to delete it.

freshhawk2• 9 years ago

23andme tried to give me the runaround when I wanted my data destroyed, when I replied pointing out the exact clause in the TOS I was referencing (that was very hard to find) they were immediately condescending assholes, when I politely replied that I just wanted them to do what the TOS said, and I asked using the exact phrasing they requested they went right to hostile and insulting.

There is no way in hell they actually destroyed my sample or my data. They quite rightly knew that they didn't need to convince me of anything or try to hide the fact they were lying.

muzani• 9 years ago

Reminds me of WhatsApp.

Prizewinner• 9 years ago

This is really reassuring. I can't think of how a company would take advantage of my house layout, but they always find a way.

avian• 9 years ago

If it's coupled with some Wi-Fi physical layer data (signal strength, etc.), a big dataset might be useful in making a better model for in-door signal propagation. Roombas are already quite popular in the research community as a cheap platform for automatically moving around equipment.

Raphmedia• 9 years ago

"Our sensors have detected that you have room for a bigger TV! Here are 5 products that would fit perfectly right in your living room!"

jasonkostempski• 9 years ago

You can't actually make that promise and you can't grantee the data won't leak. Anyway, the real problem is I don't want iRobot to have the data either.

amelius• 9 years ago

Meanwhile, an average Android phone stores much more data about the user in the cloud ...

ourmandave• 9 years ago

How exactly do you agree to the Roomba Terms of Agreement?

MichaelMoser123• 9 years ago

Its good news that he regards privacy as an important factor. I wish all companies would do that...

hsnewman• 9 years ago

Empty promises. I don't believe anything anymore, especially from heads of organizations. Perhaps if he were to back it with a contract that says if they do release my data they will pay $x, I'd believe them.

UnoriginalGuy2• 9 years ago

I was actually on the market for a 960 or 980 and was just waiting for a great price.

After reading the original article where they casually suggested they'd sell photos from within my home (in the form of maps), I've scrapped the entire concept. I knew the 900 series had better mapping, but I never considered that someone would use that to invade my privacy (and that of my family).

And this article doesn't change that. You cannot put this genie back in the bottle. Now all I wonder is "when" that data would be sold, whereas before it wasn't even something on my mind.

I currently own a 700 series "bump" Roomba. I think I'll stick to "bump" navigation models without WiFi, since clearly the data will get abused.

PS - I am well aware that certain information about my home is public, such as square footage, floor layout, and so on. This is taking that one step further, by selling even the layout and type of furniture I own. Plus the Roomba uses optical cameras, so who knows how far this could go. Particularly if they just switch it on one day and make it "opt out."

brightball• 9 years ago

I'm still waiting for them to build a charging station that can empty the waste bin while it's charging.

slg3• 9 years ago

I can't help but feel that privacy controversies like this are going to turn into a "boy who cried wolf" situation if we freak out anytime anyone collects the least bit of data about us. Who really cares if this company collects and/or sells mapping data of our floors? Why should I be worried if Amazon knows the distance between my couch and coffee table? Isn't our outrage better preserved for when our privacy is truly invaded?

eridius4• 9 years ago

Outrage is absolutely appropriate for cases like this. This isn't "boy who cried wolf". The fact that cases like this generate outrage serves as a reminder to everybody that privacy is important and as a strong signal to companies that they can't do stuff like this without customer backlash.

If we just sat quietly and did nothing when iRobot seems to be selling our data, then that just opens the door to worse privacy violations.

handedness• 9 years ago

A world in which people overreact to privacy violations (whether perceived or real) isn't one I envision happening any time soon.

Sure, there'll be periodic and pointless indignation, but then the vast majority of those complaining will go back to trading their personal information for free stuff.

CameronBanga• 9 years ago

That's the great thing about having a market and the ability to share this information. You go ahead and buy the Roomba, and I'll just avoid them all together. It's fine. But I'm glad to know that this was on the cards, and plan to vote with my pocket and not buy products that intend to do something like this.

I hate to sound alarmist, but as our world grows increasingly connected, I tend to be a bit cautious as to why I'm giving up this data and for what benefit. I see stories like this (https://carpeaqua.com/2017/07/07/hack-the-planet/) and wouldn't have thought before that my PayPal accounts or other financial information could be at risk because of an AT&T issue, but some criminal was smart and exploited the weak link here.

I don't have any idea as to how criminals in the future will exploit my personal house data in order to steal from me, but just in case they find a way, I'd rather not offer up that data because "who cares".

alekratz• 9 years ago

I don't have any idea as to how criminals in the future will exploit my personal house data in order to steal from me, ...

Floor plans are quite useful for staging a burglary.

bagacrap• 9 years ago

Don't assume they'll be so uncreative with your data. For example, if there are time stamps on the collected data it could tell someone when the Roomba tends to run and that might indicate when you are gone from your home.

Chardok• 9 years ago

Just because you can't think of abuses to your couch-to-coffee table distance or your floor layout doesn't mean that they could potentially be privacy-invading, especially when they are fed into massive AI databases.

You could call me paranoid, but I prefer all data I generate in private to be limited to whom I want to share it with.

indigochill• 9 years ago

Suppose I'm an insurance company. If I know how far a robot had to travel to clean your floor, I know your house's square footage which means I can make estimates about your income and lifestyle based on data from millions of other people. Maybe I decide (doesn't matter that it's wrongly as long as I decide it's pertinent) from your probable lifestyle based on this data that you may be at risk for developing a health condition and so I charge you more for health insurance.

If I'm a burglar, it's convenient to map out your house before I burgle you.

There's just no reason pertaining to cleaning floors that the floor plan needs to get saved anywhere. Companies collect data for the purpose of extracting value from it. If they just wanted to make smart devices better, they could have the devices communicate on a closed network without sending data anywhere outside the network.

yourapostasy• 9 years ago

Why should I be worried if Amazon knows the distance between my couch and coffee table? Isn't our outrage better preserved for when our privacy is truly invaded?

This isn't thinking like a corporation, nor a hacker. This as an APT, information security-wise.

These kinds of grants of access to private data by consumers for monetization purposes are never, ever constrained to one highly-specific type of data. They want you to grant access to a data gathering CHANNEL. Once that channel is opened, any additional data they figure out how to gather falls under the same agreement you consented to before.

Today, it is room data. Tomorrow, it is dust and pollen collection data.

"So what, who cares, they can have measurements of how much dust and pollen is in my home, lol."

Yeah?

Exactly how much have you worked with the data brokering business? If you've been around the block in that part of the industry for any length of time, you quickly realize that it isn't single individual databases where the real bucks are made. It is novel combinations of datasets giving you a plausible explanation to draw inferences from the data.

Go back to the hypothetical dust and pollen measurement. Suppose the GOP loosens the restrictions on risk-pricing medical insurance plans; as long as an insurer can point to a plausible explanation of pricing factors, they can price it however they want above a baseline, but they don't have to make it easy for you to figure that out. Health insurer uses a study [1] to explain how certain levels of dust and pollen are correlated to X% increases in stress-related costs. They purchase the dataset from iRobot. Slap an X% increase onto your premiums, but you are none the wiser on exactly why, and especially where the substantiating data came from, "because it's a trade secret".

The practically non-existent privacy protections for American consumers is essentially a license to steal from them. The best part is you never have to be told who gave what information about you, and when. All this data gathering started out as a sales exercise only because that is the low-hanging fruit. The real prize is absolute control over all the decisions you will make that matter to the owners.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3264048/

__jal3• 9 years ago

Who really cares if this company collects and/or sells mapping data of our floors?

Me. And not to put too fine a point on it, the people in the market for buying and selling this data.

Why should I be worried if Amazon knows the distance between my couch and coffee table?

I'm not going to presume to speak for you.

Isn't our outrage better preserved for when our privacy is truly invaded?

...So don't speak for me when deciding what is an isn't an invasion of privacy.

I find this to be a significant invasion, and so do many other folks, some of whom are giving you possible answers to your question. In a lot of ways, this is no different than people claiming the FB 'true name' policy doesn't matter/is actually a positive. Maybe for them, but not for the former partner of an abusive spouse, or the gay kid in Russia or Alabama.

Don't presume that your tolerance for data leakage is the same as everyone else's.

More generally, the point is that information like this just should be default-private. There is zero reason for me to want information like this to be shared with random third-parties. If iRobot or whomever wants to "enhance the value of their connected devices" with private data about me and/or my possessions, let them approach me and convince me to share it, not just blandly write some bullshit privacy policy and take it from a device I purchased.

I love innovation, new toys, etc. But this rush to sneakily inventory/quantify/spy on me, my home, possessions and relations is awful, and will have creepy outcomes. It won't happen to me, because I won't install this shit in my home or use social media, but it will happen.

Do what you like with your own sense of privacy, but don't presume to speak for anyone else about what a "true invasion" might be.

slg3• 9 years ago

In a lot of ways, this is no different than people claiming the FB 'true name' policy doesn't matter/is actually a positive. Maybe for them, but not for the former partner of an abusive spouse, or the gay kid in Russia or Alabama.

This is exactly what I am talking about. Do you honestly see no hyperbole in this? Roomba having a map of my floors is no different than a policy that leads to gay kids in Russia being thrown in jail. Things aren't binary. We can deal with them in nuance. Equating these two together weakens your argument against both of them.

TFortunato7• 9 years ago

Hey jal, just to let you know the iRobot privacy policy and device data collection and retention policy does state that data will not be shared, divulged or sold to any third party without your express informed consent on a case by case basis, and that data is not even collected by them unless you opt-in and register your robot with them. The bots are fully functional as a standalone device without internet connectivity. Additionally you can contact them at any time to have your private data removed from their servers which they are happy to do.

Full disclosure: I am a former iRobot engineer, and also a big privacy proponent. I also had some feelings about a camera enabled mapping robot when I first learned about the project, but I can tell you that the people there take privacy and data security VERY seriously, and really are trying to respect their customers as much as possible. Unfortunatley the message that iRobot wanted to allow you to share your mapping data if you wanted to for enabling smart home applications got spun pretty quickly into "iRobot wants to sell your data!")

krapp• 9 years ago

Why should I be worried if Amazon knows the distance between my couch and coffee table?

The only reason I can think of is that square footage can be an indicator of income class.

notjustanymike• 9 years ago

Great they won't sell it, what about requests from the government?

christmm• 9 years ago

wait, so me standing up peeing while my Roomba is working, is not a good idea?

backtoyoujim• 9 years ago

Until they hire the CEO from Nest

pvaldes• 9 years ago

Roomba is in a very special category of machines, one able to collect indirectly samples of human tissue, drugs like cocain, etc... as part of their normal work.

Therefore the bigger trouble is not in the data that iRobot could have about your cleaning chores or the shape of your house; the real problem would be anybody with enough motivation ringing your door bell with a fake iRobot uniform and the generous offer to replace/upgrade your old roomba with a newer machine for free. Old fashioned social hacking.

acomjean3• 9 years ago

That testing equipment is still pretty pricy...

but...

If a company offers to come in and vacuum my place for free I'm thinking I should be suspicious (click this box to agree to our terms)...

acomjean3• 9 years ago

I'm thinking not really that big a deal.. Maybe I'm just jaded.

address-> house size mapping has been done. (I think towns keep that data for tax purposes)

name -> address is a phone book away. (If you've ever bought a property you probably got some welcome mail from companies looking to sell you things)

the address->email address/online presence might be where the new data comes out.

I worked at a company that monitored peoples and businesses power use, on a circuit by circuit basis. This can be really invasive. When my boss went on vacation, his data clearly showed that (we used his house for testing). Our CEO asked his wife why she came home early, she asked how he knew (the garage door and kitchen power... He could keep his toys but not talk about it again.). Another person was wondering if he should talk to his dog walker because he noticed that one walk was really shorter than it should be...

Our sales guys would look at a company they had meeting with roof, to figure out the size and number of AC units, before going to talk to a business.

We really have little privacy anymore.

shostack2• 9 years ago

What were the main uses of this data? There's actually a lot of interesting uses here. Personally, I've been wanting some easy way to label certain circuits and outlets in my home via an app, and then get a real-time read on how much it is costing me to use them based on my area's energy rates.

I've long thought that simply making myself more aware of the actual dollar costs of usage for various things (leaving lights and computers on, etc.) could be a great way to nudge me towards better energy consumption habits (ditto for water usage).

acomjean3• 9 years ago

Sorry for the late reply. The use of the energy data were to help figure were the power in your power bill was going. For example my Boss's old refrigerator was drawing a lot more power then expected. And giving hints on how to save.

We uploaded data from the box to the cloud once per minute, so you could see your usage. We could give an estimate on daily/monthly/yearly cost. Electric rates can be weird, so businesses we had logic that would try to calculate and alert you when you were reaching a specific dollar figure (or peak period.. some utilities surcharge based on peak usage)

In general we had dashboards and alerts. Restaurants could see if the lights were on after a certain hour (usually closing). A big early win was a place that had electric heaters in the front windows that were on 24/7. It was fun watching the solar panels generate, and see when the clouds go by.

The company moved into hvac control with temperature sensors and monitoring refrigerators and cooking temperatures. Now I think they're selling services to oven companies and such.

Its AC so there is some work to pull the data out (we had a custom board to deal with the 14 channels).

Current transformers are what makes it work. There are some open source solutions are starting to show up that don't require uploading to the cloud. There are "Kill a watt" for single plug monitoring, but they lack logging.

http://www.p3international.com/products/p4400.html

chaostheory2• 9 years ago

Another way to look at it is that the gov could always monitor you via wiretapping, but doing it through centralized data services is easier and cheaper.

One use for this data would be for the IRS, to help determine square footage to see if it's inline with what's reported for home offices

andrewstuart2• 9 years ago

Have you been to Zillow lately? Very good chance your square footage is already very public.

sbov• 9 years ago

Depends on the format.

I found a company that took those public property records and made them searchable online on 1 website. There's a huge difference between finding a phone book in the right area and manually searching by name (you need to have a rough idea of where I live), vs going to the correct county website and searching my name (you still need a rough idea of where I live, but it will be easier since you don't need physical access), vs being able to go to a single website and find out where anyone in the US lives (all I need to know is you're in the US).

verdverm• 9 years ago

https://www.socialcooling.com They might not sell the raw data, but what about derivatives?

grizzles• 9 years ago

I call bullshit. Here is Reuters correction:

(This July 24 story corrects paragraph 6 to read "share maps for free with customer consent" instead of "sell maps")

"Angle told Reuters that iRobot, which made Roomba compatible with Amazon's Alexa voice assistant in March, could reach a deal to share its maps for free with customer consent to one or more of the Big Three in the next couple of years. Angle added the company could extract value from those agreements by connecting for free with as many companies as possible to make the device more useful in the home."

Glad to see the backlash. When I read the original story I thought - this seems like a good product to sell to a SWAT team. It's amusing that a company named after the book/film "I, Robot" is the one involved in this controversy.

In my opinion, the market is ripe for a privacy sensitive electronics brand. Personally, I looked into this with phones a few times but just couldn't find the right mftg partner.

wmeredith• 9 years ago

a privacy sensitive electronics brand

We have one. They're called Apple and they're quite successful :D

jethro_tell• 9 years ago

Uh, I, . . .. What?

camiller• 9 years ago

It's amusing that a company named after the book/film "I, Robot"

The book and film or so un-related it is almost an insult to mention them as if they are the same. While a few character names and the three laws come from Asimov the plot of the movie is mostly original work adapted from a screenplay Hardwired by Jeff Vintar completely unlinked to Asimov's stories.

SpikeDad• 9 years ago

"We take the privacy of our customers seriously".

IncRnd2• 9 years ago

The primary issue is that iRobot has your room data in the first place. iRobot created a design that includes the ability for them to have your data, despite any costs on their end. Since there is a cost on their end, they created this system with the intention of benefiting iRobot.

miheermunjal• 9 years ago

Seems like we've seen this story before... 1) We don't sell your data 2) unless you give us permission 3) but to be convenient we will default it on for you 4) and sell it preemptively to "enhance" your experience 5) but don't worry someone hacked us and took it for free anyways.

ayh• 9 years ago

Until Amazon, Google, Facebook, etc. buys them. :)

ajarmst• 9 years ago

For some values of "never", "sell" and "data".

jbverschoor• 9 years ago

Here's a solution: 1) Promise me to pay $1 for every data point in case of a data breach 2) Run you software on my hardware. I promise not to sell you software.

AdmiralAsshat• 9 years ago

Radio Shack said they would never sell their customers' data, either.

mdns33• 9 years ago

Data revolution is akin to the atom bomb for privacy.

bassman9000• 9 years ago

The only way not to sell my data is not to acquire it in the first place. Anything else are false promises.

egor598• 9 years ago

Riiight, and bees are on strike against the HONEY!

squarefoot2• 9 years ago

"iRobot will never sell your data"

Well, then how about giving it for free because they're forced to or dutifully happy to do so? iRobot until just over one year ago built military and critical robots for the US government, police etc, then they sold the military division to a different entity, but I wonder if they still have ties with the govt.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/02/irobot-sells-off-mil...

Moter8• 9 years ago

When a Criminal gets arrested or charged through the data of an robot vacuum, I'm going to eat my own hair.

lultimouomo• 9 years ago

"Have you found any marijuana ashes on the floor? Answer the policeman, Roomba!"

squarefoot2• 9 years ago

Just wait for the new and shiny model using AI+cameras+cloud to recognize dirty spots on the floor, go cleaning them,then report back to the owners phone that either the job is done or they need a wiper replacement, or Billy's giant teddy bear is in the way and it can't complete the task.

Adding malicious code to such a platform will be just too simple. ...And tempting.

mcnamaratw• 9 years ago

Send ME your data! I promise I will never sell it!

randyrand• 9 years ago

Id rather they say iRobot does not have the right to sell my data. Why did they give themselves that right in the first place if they don't plan to use it ever??

Sir_Cmpwn• 9 years ago

Why do they even have the data? Collecting it is fine but it has no reason to leave the robot.

zebraflask• 9 years ago

Isn't the biggest question here along the lines of:

This is a little novelty device meant for neat freaks and gadgetphiles (no offense intended) who like the idea of a home robot doing a simple chore like keeping a floor clean.

Why would it need any kind of data collection at all, beyond - at most - a minimal set of local (not cloud connected) diagnostics to keep it running? Even that sounds suspect for a self-propelled vacuum cleaner.

In my opinion, which might seem quite opinionated, there are limits to the amount of data that needs to be collected to develop a successful product. Slapping some IoT features on products that don't need to have them just reeks of excessively clever over-engineering, or, possibly, an ulterior motive.

nvr219• 9 years ago

what a great headline

Animats• 9 years ago

How about "iRobot will never upload your data?"

erkose• 9 years ago

Then stop collecting the data.

CEO says iRobot will never sell your data

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