Roomba, who creates the robotic vacuum cleaners is working on a deal to sell the privacy info of their customers who have purchased the robot.

The company has indicated that they can map the entire floor, collect info on furniture, traffic patterns and perhaps even confirm if there is a baby in the house. All of this info, and more, is of interest to corporate marketing firms.

Who Cares?

People just do not seem to understand the value of their privacy info. Not the value of privacy itself as a concept, but rather, the monetary value of releasing your privacy info for cash. It is not just Roomba doing this, companies like Facebook and Google have been thriving off this privacy stealing business model for years.

However, Android, Chrome, and Facebook users are more populous now than ever! So not many people seem to care.

However, I do not think we should get so complacent, so quickly.

You Are The Product

Users will justify the use of GMail and Facebook saying, those products are free, so I give away my personal info instead of paying to use those products...

WRONG!

Nothing is free and you are the product being bought and sold. Those companies become rich beyond our wildest dreams, simply by selling their customers private info. So if you don't think that your privacy info is worth cash, then you do not value yourself enough.

Can The Internet Of Things Be Trusted?

Is selling a product not enough anymore? Roomba has made a profit margin of at least 35% on the robot but still, that is not enough. Especially if consumers do not place a monetary value on their privacy information.

So Roomba might as well turn their customers into a product too!

It turns out, that all Internet Of Things devices could do this exact same thing.

Looking at You Android

Google already does it with their Android cell phones. They sell the phone and the OS as a product, but that is not where the real money is made. That just gets the consumer to pay for the infrastructure that Google will use behind the scenes to make really big money, by selling the privacy info of their customers.

Will your car one day report back how you use it to Ford, so that they too can turn consumers into their product to be bought and sold?

It's All About Money

Let's be clear here. I have nothing to hide from anyone. So I am not "scared" of robot vacuums or Android phones.

Rather, I just think that I should get a cut of the money made from selling my privacy info. Very similar to how we get a cut here on Steemit.

For the record... I have never, nor will I ever carry a cell phone. This is just one of many reasons why. Someone is going to need to pay me to carry that cell phone, not the other way around.

I Love Robots

Anyone looking at my blog will see numerous posts about machine learning, robotics, programming and technology. I thrive on this stuff so I have no issues with those ideals.

All I want here is a cut from selling my privacy info. That part is very hard for most folks to understand. However, I think the user base on Steemit understands this really well, which is partly why I shared these thoughts here today.

Don't let yourself get complacent, don't fall for these dirty tricks from Google, Roomba, and Facebook. Insist that you are paid for your time and effort because nothing is free in this world.