How dare they do this! This is getting totally out of control. A contributor sent this to me today and it outraged me enough to give it top billing for the day. Google is planning to tap into our internal computer microphones to monitor and data mine what people listen to in the background, whatever that may be. Music, videos, conversations, Skype calls, TV and radio, and your dog barking. This is insanity. We deserve some modicum of privacy in our own homes. The first and fourth amendments still exists, after all! It also surprises me, considering that Google is a big proponent of net neutrality. How can they be so on the right side of something important and then on the wrong side of something just as important! There goes the last of our privacy… watch it fly out the window. From The Register:

“The first thing that came out of our mouths when we heard that Google is working on a system that listens to what’s on your TV playing in the background, and then serves you relevant adverts, was “that’s cool, but dangerous“.
The idea appeared in Technology Review citing Peter Norvig, director of research at Google, who says these ideas will show up eventually in real Google products - sooner rather than later.
The idea is to use the existing PC microphone to listen to whatever is heard in the background, be it music, your phone going off or the TV turned down. The PC then identifies it, using fingerprinting, and then shows you relevant content, whether that’s adverts or search results, or a chat room on the subject.”

We have to do something, call Congressmen, splash this on your websites, yell out the window, something. We need to research how to stop this. Our equipment is bought and paid for by us to serve us and be useful tools, not to allow the government or Google to spy on us. It serves us and I will not pay for equipment or software that is going to spy on me. The government can go jump in a lake if they think we’re going to stand for this. How much money does Google need that it sells its soul in this way? I may have to dump my gmail and start using someone else for searches, etc. Google seems to be outgrowing its own conscience.

submitted by Shelly of Citizen Against Lies