Google Reaches Into Customers' Homes And Bricks Their Gadgets

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Are you satisfied with that home automation solution you bought year or two ago? You are? Well too bad, Google bought the company and they are killing your device. Well, at least you can still get a Nest. Wait. Never mind.

Revolv is a home automation hub that Google acquired 17 months ago; yesterday, Google announced that as of May 15, it will killswitch all the Revolvs in the field and render them inert. Section 1201 of the DMCA -- the law that prohibits breaking DRM -- means that anyone who tries to make a third-party OS for Revolv faces felony charges and up to 5 years in prison.
 
Wow!

I've been staying away from all this IoT shit for a variety of reasons. Here's another one!
 
IoT isn't the problem, Google is.
Google's insistence on everything reporting back to the mothership so they can catalog even more information about you is ill advised, at best. Everything Google does is a "gather information first" priority. Everything else, including functionality, answers to Google's insatiable need for personal data.
IoT automation doesn't need to depend on internet services. It can use them while providing a functional fall back when the connection isn't available or the services are deprecated. Google's fear is that any functional fallback might be the default configuration for the privacy conscious, they would rather not give people the choice.

Do a little research, make sure what you use can operate without an internet connection, and avoid Google - they can't be trusted. Do that and you should be fine.
 
Ordeith said:
IoT isn't the problem, Google is.
Google's insistence on everything reporting back to the mothership so they can catalog even more information about you is ill advised, at best. Everything Google does is a "gather information first" priority. Everything else, including functionality, answers to Google's insatiable need for personal data.
IoT automation doesn't need to depend on internet services. It can use them while providing a functional fall back when the connection isn't available or the services are deprecated. Google's fear is that any functional fallback might be the default configuration for the privacy conscious, they would rather not give people the choice.

Do a little research, make sure what you use can operate without an internet connection, and avoid Google - they can't be trusted. Do that and you should be fine.
Click to expand...

Exactly this. I'm in the research phase right now and I was surprised at the overwhelming number of solutions that require constant internet connection. Aside from the security risk, what happens when they shut down the cloud servers? Or do what Google is doing in this case and purposely bricking the devices so you'll have to spend more money?

Samsung's SmartThings looks very enticing but they keep having problems with their servers which renders everything useless and they don't support local connections. :(
 
Ordeith said:
IoT isn't the problem, Google is.
Google's insistence on everything reporting back to the mothership so they can catalog even more information about you is ill advised, at best. Everything Google does is a "gather information first" priority. Everything else, including functionality, answers to Google's insatiable need for personal data.
IoT automation doesn't need to depend on internet services. It can use them while providing a functional fall back when the connection isn't available or the services are deprecated. Google's fear is that any functional fallback might be the default configuration for the privacy conscious, they would rather not give people the choice.

Do a little research, make sure what you use can operate without an internet connection, and avoid Google - they can't be trusted. Do that and you should be fine.
Click to expand...

To an extent perhaps.. I too don't like Googles sticky fingers in everything. Though this device "called home" to Revolv way before Nest owned it, which was before Google owned Nest.. So if the service dependent thing is your beef, this time blame Revolv who designed it that way in the first place before Google purchased the company. (that purchased the company, sub sub company in this case)
 
DarkStar02 said:
Exactly this. I'm in the research phase right now and I was surprised at the overwhelming number of solutions that require constant internet connection. Aside from the security risk, what happens when they shut down the cloud servers? Or do what Google is doing in this case and purposely bricking the devices so you'll have to spend more money?

Samsung's SmartThings looks very enticing but they keep having problems with their servers which renders everything useless and they don't support local connections. :(
Click to expand...

Look into the Honeywell stuff, from what I remember it runs off of a local web server. It isn't as cheap as the Samsung or the Google stuff but it doesn't require outside access to work.
 
A lot of people are giving the author a hard time saying that you can't expect something that requires a company funded internet connected app service to work indefinitely, but that just proves the point he is trying to make. Everything is moving to require apps and internet services to work. Sure, your cheap $200 IoT device being bricked by the manufacturer may not bother you, but what about when your car manufacturer decides to discontinue your 5 year old autonomous car because it isn't selling well? You ok with a 3500 lbs $35k paperweight in the garage? What about when the systems are actually built into your home as a part of it?
 
And this is why you don't use cloud based stuff if it's something you want to be able to depend on. Hard wired Raspberry Pi, Arduino, and other such turn key I/O boards are the way to go. That way you're not depending on some kind of 3rd party service for it to keep working.
 
Those $200 Google OnHub WiFi routers are looking like an even worse idea than they already were! I still can't believe when people buy shit like these routers where they can't even manage their own hardware without using a Google account tied into a Cloud app.
 
This is why you only buy hardware where you are the only party to have control of it. Everyone whines "oooohhhhh it's too complicated, I 'just want it to work'". Fine, go ahead and buy some shit that you don't have control over, however when that company abuses you or your information and screws you over, don't fucking complain. Go ahead and upload your data in a readable format to your "secure" cloud account, when that data gets "shared with their partners" and compromised it will be alright, after all, you get one free year of credit monitoring!

Hell, Ford made a conscious business decision to let people die because it was cheaper to pay off the settlements than to fix their defective vehicles ( Pinto Madness ) . Your actual LIFE has a dollar number on it, and you think they're worried about implementing the most rigorous security standards to protect your information? If you do then you are a fucking sucker. The bottom line is that if people/corporations can abuse you to make a profit they will, end of story. Trust me on this, nobody cares as much about yourself and your well being as you do. Maybe your parents/spouse/kids do, and even that is a maybe.
 
Yeah, the software side of things is where this is, they aren't killing anything other than the software which unfortunately makes the hardware useless. Although this is hardly new, companies have bought other companies and did shenanigans like this for almost as long as companies have existed, maybe not be killing a server, but something.
 
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The rebellion will be open source. Google doesn't own everything, try as they might.

 
Ordeith said:
IoT isn't the problem, Google is.
Google's insistence on everything reporting back to the mothership so they can catalog even more information about you is ill advised, at best. Everything Google does is a "gather information first" priority. Everything else, including functionality, answers to Google's insatiable need for personal data.
IoT automation doesn't need to depend on internet services. It can use them while providing a functional fall back when the connection isn't available or the services are deprecated. Google's fear is that any functional fallback might be the default configuration for the privacy conscious, they would rather not give people the choice.

Do a little research, make sure what you use can operate without an internet connection, and avoid Google - they can't be trusted. Do that and you should be fine.
Click to expand...

Google technically didn't have anything to do with this. Revolv is being shuttered by Nest which is owned by Alphabet. One could perhaps argue that Alphabet basically is Google for all intents and purposes, but the point I'm trying to make here is that if you're just avoiding things tied to the "Google" moniker that wouldn't have saved you here.

DarkStar02 said:
Aside from the security risk, what happens when they shut down the cloud servers? Or do what Google is doing in this case and purposely bricking the devices so you'll have to spend more money?
Click to expand...

I think what Google, ahem - I mean Alphabet-Nest-Revolv, is probably doing here is just shutting down the servers which effectively is bricking the devices and not that they are literally bricking them.

If you think this is bad, wait till the end of the year when Parse shuts down. I don't think anybody realizes how many apps that run on parse on the back-end are just going to suddenly die. Hundreads, maybe thousands of apps.
 
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I know Google thinks they have good lawyers but this sounds like they are about to commit multiple violations of US State and Federal computer crimes laws. It is one thing to simply turn off a Google server. But sending a kill code via the Internet to brick private property seems to be a possible fast track to a bad place. Hope folks that wind up with bricked gizmos report this as a unwanted hack on their property to the FBI. Better, report it to Homeland Security as a possible terrorist cyber attack. What if someone dies because some aspect of their home quits working in a bad way?
 
Private_Ops said:
Home automation? Whats wrong with turning on/off your lights or furnace or whatever manually?
Click to expand...
Pipe down, you! ;)

walle.jpg
 
HVAC is nice to automate to save on gas. I have mine setup to work with my shift work, and I can VPN in from work to adjust if I want as well. Ex: not going home for lunch, I can override it from warming the house up. I still need to tweak some stuff and make GUI nicer though but it works great for the most part. Don't have to worry about some 3rd party ruining my day either as it does not depend on anything external.

Actually how do these fancy cloud based systems fair out if the internet goes out anyway? Do they actually stop working? That could be a problem... lol.



 
Private_Ops said:
Home automation? Whats wrong with turning on/off your lights or furnace or whatever manually?
Click to expand...
Nothing is wrong with it. There also isn't anything wrong with gathering firewood and striking two stones together to get a fire lit, there is nothing wrong with wallking to the store instead of driving your car there. Its all a matter of convenience and personal preference. Home automation has its place, it can improve inefficiency in the home immensely and keep you safer, but nothing wrong with doing it the traditional way if you want. But nothing wrong with home automation either.
 
This is the DMCA that we all ignore when the EFF asks for help to fight for the consumer. The EFF asks for help to fight for the small things like video games that still operate when the servers go dark. Digital game purchases that don't disappear from a consumer's Steam library because the publisher decided that they were tired of supporting it. Consumers in America condone these business practices by saying nothing and thus this move by Google is just the tip of the iceberg. This is just the speck of dirt in the Grand Canyon. Wait until your car doesn't start because your user license requires that you upgrade to the newest model within a certain window of time. So now you have a 2 ton tin can parked in your driveway. Or your local mechanic and you can't work on it because of the DMCA. Yes, you may go to jail in the future for working on your car as it will violate the DMCA.

This is what our lack of concern for our rights gives us in return. Google and the rest of the business world knows that consumers are sheep and easily led. Fat, lazy sheep that won't fight to protect their rights.
 
cbutters said:
Nothing is wrong with it. There also isn't anything wrong with gathering firewood and striking two stones together to get a fire lit, there is nothing wrong with wallking to the store instead of driving your car there. Its all a matter of convenience and personal preference. Home automation has its place, it can improve inefficiency in the home immensely and keep you safer, but nothing wrong with doing it the traditional way if you want. But nothing wrong with home automation either.
Click to expand...


No.. Nothing wrong with it. In my opinion it goes to far when stuff like this happens.
 
this is why I bought a Proliphix thermostat, internal webserver, no outside service
 
Killing Internet server support is one thing, but bricking the device is quite another (and the opposite action to what should take place when you end of life a product line like this). When a product that normally relies on internet connectivity to servers for some of its functions is end-of-life with the producing company, a firmware patch should be issued that will shut down the internet connectivity aspect of that products function, but not outright brick the product (assuming it has functions outside internet connectivity). A IoT toaster that is end-of-life should still cook toast just fine manually. However, it should no longer allow for any of the internet functions associated with the toaster device to work when the company determines the product is end-of-life and shuts down the servers for it. Intelligent firms would simply code the firmware in preparation for this eventuality, but it shouldn't be difficult really to make a firmware upgrade that will stop the internet functions of the toaster from continuing, while allowing it to still cook toast. Forced obsolescence of devices that are still undamaged and physically functional should not be allowed as it gives a perverse incentive to corporations to be able to force consumers in bad faith to have to come back and re-buy a product they already bought for the same basic function (not the internet bells and whistles) the original device would still serve today if the company had not intervened and broken the product pre-maturely via firmware.

I hope consumers or the EFF will be able to roll this terrible business practice back through successful litigation, because obviously, there is no consideration for the consumer in today's world unless the consumer can exact a monetary penalty through successful litigation.

Think about this. If as a consumer you expend your money (which is really just a symbol or substitute for you expending your labor) for a product or permanent service (ie non-subscription / recurring charge) and said product or service can be deactivated by the manufacturer (or current owner after the company buyout) so that it no longer functions for the specified use which caused you to purchase said product, what does that mean?
In effect, your labor (money) which you determined was best exchanged for the now defunct product or service has been taken by the company you bought the product from, but instead of them giving you the equal value of product to your labor, they gave you a product of equal value initially, and later they took back the functionality that gave the product value.
It would be like a car company intentionally having their vehicles "break" at 12,000 miles. So you buy your vehicle expecting to get 10 years out of it and you expend money (stored / represented labor) that is equal to the value of a car that you will drive for 10 years at the level of comfort you desire for the interior, drive, handling, power, etc. The company in bad faith takes your money (stored / represented labor), gives you a car, then bricks it after 1 year / 12,000 miles.
That company is effectively stealing the other 9 years of stored / represented labor valued in the money you spent on the car. So unless the car company was upfront with you on purchase day that the car was only going to ever drive 1 year / 12,000 miles, then you as a person in that scenario have basically had your money (represented labor) stolen from you by that company. Funny how society looks at things, because directly taking someone's labor without compensation is considered slavery which is abhorrent to free societies. Yet, in a world that works like my above scenario (and like how the Google's of the world are driving this Internet of Things craze), the value of your labor (represented in money) is being stolen from you after you have expended your labor toward the purchase of a product. The product functions normally until it is forced into obsolescence and shutdown by the company (or new owners) you bought the product from. Suddenly the labor you expended in life to obtain sufficient money (represented labor) to use to purchase a product that would complete a function which you valued enough to spend your money on is all for nothing. The company has taken your represented labor and rather than providing you the function, they have decided to arbitrarily force your product not to function as intended. The result is your expended labor for that products function is gone and is not repaid to you by the value of that product functioning. Effectively, the company could have been more direct about their actions by just forcing you to work for them and generate money for them without paying or compensating you for the labor expended over time.

This type of forced obsolescence leads us down the path where consumers cannot really own anything (not in the legitimate and permanent sense), but instead become perpetual lessee's for anything we can spend our money (stored/ represented labor) on. In a world where ownership is no longer an option, you may feel comfortable in your station, but you are still effectively a slave and dependent on the good graces of whomever is actually the true owner of everything you see, lease, and use.

It occurs to me that at some point down this current path consumers and corporations are on, we will wake up and realize that we might as well be working at a coal mine, getting paid in company scrip, and being perpetually stuck in the negative on our account with the company store. Instead of coming at people in the more obvious and direct method of altering wages directly through issuing scrip and changing prices at the company store, the equation of how much labor is represented by money is altered on the after purchase side. In this way, it is more indirect, less visible before purchase, and may provide sufficient difficulty to the purchaser when seeking recourse, that he/she will simply walk away and allow the company that arbitrarily changed the function of the product to keep without dispute the money value that product lost when it was shutdown.
 
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Great. I bet Comcast will get some neat ideas from this ... like bricking every cable modem that isn't one of their rental units.
 
I would not call 200 bucks peanuts... Nest is Bullshit , if you know your patterns and the Temps you are comfortable with can't see it being much more efficient than a programmable thermostat suited for what you know. Wow Google scary.
 
amddragonpc said:
Great. I bet Comcast will get some neat ideas from this ... like bricking every cable modem that isn't one of their rental units.
Click to expand...
Cable ISP's already do this (usually) on a small scale, though whether it is intentional or not......
 
CVNet1 said:
Killing Internet server support is one thing, but bricking the device is quite another (and the opposite action to what should take place when you end of life a product line like this). When a product that normally relies on internet connectivity to servers for some of its functions is end-of-life with the producing company, a firmware patch should be issued that will shut down the internet connectivity aspect of that products function, but not outright brick the product (assuming it has functions outside internet connectivity). A IoT toaster that is end-of-life should still cook toast just fine manually. However, it should no longer allow for any of the internet functions associated with the toaster device to work when the company determines the product is end-of-life and shuts down the servers for it. Intelligent firms would simply code the firmware in preparation for this eventuality, but it shouldn't be difficult really to make a firmware upgrade that will stop the internet functions of the toaster from continuing, while allowing it to still cook toast. Forced obsolescence of devices that are still undamaged and physically functional should not be allowed as it gives a perverse incentive to corporations to be able to force consumers in bad faith to have to come back and re-buy a product they already bought for the same basic function (not the internet bells and whistles) the original device would still serve today if the company had not intervened and broken the product pre-maturely via firmware.

I hope consumers or the EFF will be able to roll this terrible business practice back through successful litigation, because obviously, there is no consideration for the consumer in today's world unless the consumer can exact a monetary penalty through successful litigation.

Think about this. If as a consumer you expend your money (which is really just a symbol or substitute for you expending your labor) for a product or permanent service (ie non-subscription / recurring charge) and said product or service can be deactivated by the manufacturer (or current owner after the company buyout) so that it no longer functions for the specified use which caused you to purchase said product, what does that mean?
In effect, your labor (money) which you determined was best exchanged for the now defunct product or service has been taken by the company you bought the product from, but instead of them giving you the equal value of product to your labor, they gave you a product of equal value initially, and later they took back the functionality that gave the product value.
It would be like a car company intentionally having their vehicles "break" at 12,000 miles. So you buy your vehicle expecting to get 10 years out of it and you expend money (stored / represented labor) that is equal to the value of a car that you will drive for 10 years at the level of comfort you desire for the interior, drive, handling, power, etc. The company in bad faith takes your money (stored / represented labor), gives you a car, then bricks it after 1 year / 12,000 miles.
That company is effectively stealing the other 9 years of stored / represented labor valued in the money you spent on the car. So unless the car company was upfront with you on purchase day that the car was only going to ever drive 1 year / 12,000 miles, then you as a person in that scenario have basically had your money (represented labor) stolen from you by that company. Funny how society looks at things, because directly taking someone's labor without compensation is considered slavery which is abhorrent to free societies. Yet, in a world that works like my above scenario (and like how the Google's of the world are driving this Internet of Things craze), the value of your labor (represented in money) is being stolen from you after you have expended your labor toward the purchase of a product. The product functions normally until it is forced into obsolescence and shutdown by the company (or new owners) you bought the product from. Suddenly the labor you expended in life to obtain sufficient money (represented labor) to use to purchase a product that would complete a function which you valued enough to spend your money on is all for nothing. The company has taken your represented labor and rather than providing you the function, they have decided to arbitrarily force your product not to function as intended. The result is your expended labor for that products function is gone and is not repaid to you by the value of that product functioning. Effectively, the company could have been more direct about their actions by just forcing you to work for them and generate money for them without paying or compensating you for the labor expended over time.

This type of forced obsolescence leads us down the path where consumers cannot really own anything (not in the legitimate and permanent sense), but instead become perpetual lessee's for anything we can spend our money (stored/ represented labor) on. In a world where ownership is no longer an option, you may feel comfortable in your station, but you are still effectively a slave and dependent on the good graces of whomever is actually the true owner of everything you see, lease, and use.

It occurs to me that at some point down this current path consumers and corporations are on, we will wake up and realize that we might as well be working at a coal mine, getting paid in company scrip, and being perpetually stuck in the negative on our account with the company store. Instead of coming at people in the more obvious and direct method of altering wages directly through issuing scrip and changing prices at the company store, the equation of how much labor is represented by money is altered on the after purchase side. In this way, it is more indirect, less visible before purchase, and may provide sufficient difficulty to the purchaser when seeking recourse, that he/she will simply walk away and allow the company that arbitrarily changed the function of the product to keep without dispute the money value that product lost when it was shutdown.
Click to expand...
I can see what you mean.. No doubt it's what is happening, but I wonder too as there is more and more revolv analog victims, wouldn't the pendulum swing the other way? I mean I would imagine at some point it will be an asset and advantage to advertise that would device will work with or without and app and connection forever.
 
How much would it cost Google to support the devices with a server running software that won't be updated anyway?
 
Ahhh I love my Homeseer zwave setup. No internet connection required except for remote management. And no company messing with my stuff or reporting my usage back to home base.
 
Ordeith said:
IoT isn't the problem, Google is.
Google's insistence on everything reporting back to the mothership so they can catalog even more information about you is ill advised, at best. Everything Google does is a "gather information first" priority. Everything else, including functionality, answers to Google's insatiable need for personal data.
IoT automation doesn't need to depend on internet services. It can use them while providing a functional fall back when the connection isn't available or the services are deprecated. Google's fear is that any functional fallback might be the default configuration for the privacy conscious, they would rather not give people the choice.

Do a little research, make sure what you use can operate without an internet connection, and avoid Google - they can't be trusted. Do that and you should be fine.
Click to expand...


I have more comfort with Google than I do with many other companies out there. You know, "better the devil you know, than the devil you don't". I know what googles motivation for their data collection is. I also know that they have a vested interest in not seeing any abuse or outrage around the data collection they do, because if they mess up even once, it hits them straight in the bottom line as people switch away and use something else. I am fairly familiar with their privacy policy, and while I'd prefer that my private data were not collected for ad purposes, this really is the devil I know.

Some other companies, who knows what the data they collect winds up being used for?

Now, I have a Nest. It annoys me to no end that in order for it to work, it uploads everything to a service outside of my control. I would much rather it relied on either a server in my home, or the server resided directly on the device, relying on me to create firewall rules in order for me to adjust temperature remotely via the internet. If I found a good alternative that functioned this way, I would leap on it. In the absence of that good alternative - however - I have a Nest. At least nest is owned by Google, the devil I know, and not some little fly-by-night company which who knows if the financial pressure is on, how they might be tempted to treat my data.

What does concern me about Google - however - is their aggressive rationalization of products that are unceremoniously shut down and discontinued when google is through with them. While it is annoying, this sort of works with free software. If - however - I had paid for a piece of hardware, and Google pulled this shit, I would be ABSOLUTELY FUMING right now. Unlike phones and tablets which tend to reach obsolescence rather quickly, infrastructure type devices like this people expect to be using indefinitely, regardless of warranty status, until the hardware fails. Google really needs to rethink this one, as it has the potential of really tarnishing their reputation, and might make people second guess buying any of the other hardware from companies they have acquired over the years.

Can you imagine the reaction from people if car makers remotely disabled our cars the moment the warranty expired? There would probably be riots in the streets and bomb threats.
 
k1pp3r said:
Ahhh I love my Homeseer zwave setup. No internet connection required except for remote management. And no company messing with my stuff or reporting my usage back to home base.
Click to expand...

I wasn't familiar with these, but they do seem pretty cool.

Other than my Nest, I have yet to take the plunge with home automation. Door keys, light switches and manual blinds really don't bother me, and the potential problems stemming from over-complication seem much worse than the convenience they bring to me.

That being said, if I did decide to do something like this, this would be the type of product line I'd be looking into.

I tend to be into enterprise type solutions for the home for this very reason.
 
Red Squirrel said:
And this is why you don't use cloud based stuff if it's something you want to be able to depend on. Hard wired Raspberry Pi, Arduino, and other such turn key I/O boards are the way to go. That way you're not depending on some kind of 3rd party service for it to keep working.
Click to expand...
The problem is if you need remote solutions. I have to monitor an essentially vacant house. Remotely operating a networked device starts to become a huge time-suck. If you want internet capable devices, most people will need a device that phones home.

The practical solution, is to have the device phone home to a choice of possible 3rd party services. Service that are not dependent on a specific brand or model lineup. A service that answers to you. The problem is when the service is tied to the product provider. Their interest in maintaining that service is tied to their interest in the product.
 
/usr/sbin said:
Hell, Ford made a conscious business decision to let people die because it was cheaper to pay off the settlements than to fix their defective vehicles ( Pinto Madness ) . Your actual LIFE has a dollar number on it, and you think they're worried about implementing the most rigorous security standards to protect your information? If you do then you are a fucking sucker. The bottom line is that if people/corporations can abuse you to make a profit they will, end of story. Trust me on this, nobody cares as much about yourself and your well being as you do. Maybe your parents/spouse/kids do, and even that is a maybe.
Click to expand...

Read the article about the Pinto and as someone born after this was an issue I'd always heard the jokes about Pintos catching fire. I've never delved into the issue, but that was definitely a good read.
 
jpm100 said:
The problem is if you need remote solutions. I have to monitor an essentially vacant house. Remotely operating a networked device starts to become a huge time-suck. If you want internet capable devices, most people will need a device that phones home.

The practical solution, is to have the device phone home to a choice of possible 3rd party services. Service that are not dependent on a specific brand or model lineup. A service that answers to you. The problem is when the service is tied to the product provider. Their interest in maintaining that service is tied to their interest in the product.
Click to expand...

That's what VPN is for. I can connect to my house from work and monitor/control all I want. At least with VPN it's a single point of entry and single attack layer. In my case I only need it from work typically so I restrict it to my work's IP as an extra layer of security. (this actually saved me from having to worry about Heartbleed as that port was not accessible to all of the internet when the exploit came out) There is even an OpenVPN app for Android so I can even do it from my phone. I do want to look into setting it up so I can VPN from anywhere though. Probably use some kind of port triggering.
 
I'm not sure if I would agree with "reaches into customer's homes". Technically speaking, all they've done is pull the app from the store and shut down the servers... they didn't intentionally upload something that bricks the device. They've merely stopped supporting it. Unfortunately, since it was dependent on the servers and an app that works via the Internet, the device is now useless.

I think most people would agree that if Nintendo or Sony sent out an update that bricked their consoles and prevented them from starting up or playing any games at all, that would be reaching into your home... but if a company merely stops providing an authentication server, updates, or an online play experience, then that's entirely on their end.

While I think companies are entirely within their rights to shut down a server or stop supporting a product, I think that just goes to show why it's a bad idea to depend on the cloud. Any company could go bankrupt or something and the servers could be gone over night... and if you were relying on something you can't use without a company supporting it, then it's worthless. That's why people should insist on being able to do things offline or locally. Especially if we're talking about something that's, you know, integrated into your home?
 
athenian200 said:
While I think companies are entirely within their rights to shut down a server or stop supporting a product, I think that just goes to show why it's a bad idea to depend on the cloud.
Click to expand...

There should be a clear warning label on packaging that says

"Product only guaranteed operational for X years."
"Product will collect and send this information about you to 3rd parties:
Your Name
Your Address
Your Email
Your Usage Habits
Your Energy Use Information and Patterns
When you are home
When you access the product remotely
Your homes additional computer hardware
Your preferences"

And watch how quickly companies change their tune when they see the sales drop off.
 
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