Earlier quoted context omitted.
voice search.
Google isn't in the search business.
Since most of their revenue comes from advertising, you have a point.
Does Google have access to our phone conversations?
21–26 of 26 posts
Re: Does Google have access to our phone conversations?
#22Did anyone try to look at this patent (mentioned in the original blog-post):- http://www.google.com/patents/US20040083101 And the blog-post wasn't talking about "Google Voice". It was regular phone conversation (pre-android). The author believes (and I sort of agree with him) that Google perhaps has a deal with service providers (in India) that allows them to mine voice conversations and use the information to provid…
How would it map a voice conversation to a computer ('s IP) to serve ads to?
If both are using the same WiFi router, it's trivial to correlate a phone and computer on a small network. Particularly if you have lots of data regarding the browsing patters of both devices.
Re: Does Google have access to our phone conversations?
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
voice search.
Google isn't in the search business.
Google sells search appliances, so they are most certainly in the search business:
http://www.google.com/enterprise/search/
However, obviously it's not their main source of revenue, but they are in that business.
Re: Does Google have access to our phone conversations?
#24I would say that's a bad case of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronicity - but unfortunately not even a well-written one.
Fun fact: the wikipedia article contains a link to Littlewood's law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Littlewood%27s_law), another lesser-known piece of trivia
Re: Does Google have access to our phone conversations?
#25On a related note, a friend was recently telling me they think Apples big strategy is in being able to mine the Siri data stream of a user. So to me this doesn't seem as far fetched when considered from that perspective.
Getting Siri data and recording phone calls are totally different things. Siri using your data to improve itself isn't a big deal, in my opinion. That's because you're talking directly to a service, you shouldn't expect it to be totally private. Phone calls are different, they're meant to be private.
I see your distinction. I'm not talking about Siri improving itself I'm talking about Apple suddenly now being the primary recipient of your search requests and mining the voice data. You could say your emails should be just as private as your phone calls. I see this as just Googles version of the same strategy. Not saying I agree with it though.
Re: Does Google have access to our phone conversations?
#26Google's privacy policy allows them to use a person's data to develop new products and services. Scanning voice communications for key words and then converting those into targeted advertising seems like it would be consistent with such use. And without the intent to do something along those lines, it is hard to see a business case under which Google could justify devoting resources to Voice.
"And without the intent to do something along those lines, it is hard to see a business case under which Google could justify devoting resources to Voice." I agree. They offer Google Voice, and it's easy to assume they apply the same type of analysis to voice communications like they do with other forms of communication. http://www.google.com/googlevoice/about.html
The post itself is a bit looney but the question is fair. I once noticed in my GV history a transcript of an outgoing message I'd left on another machine. Which is weird, because I thought GV was only supposed to transcribe incoming messages. Unfortunately I didn't save a copy or take a screenshot so I have no way of proving I didn't hallucinate the whole thing.