The FDA wants to 'monitor (spy) online sentiment'
The FDA would like to know what you're thinking. The FDA wants to know what you, the public, think about the FDA. And by "think," it means post stuff on the internet. And by "stuff," it means spying on damn near everything.
Regulatory Focus (via the Pharma Marketing Blog) reports that the FDA is seeking bids from contractors in order to provide the agency with assistance in "monitoring online sentiment."
It is similar in many respects to an earlier contract awarded to help the agency monitor social media traffic.
The FDA's focus should be regulating, not spying on Americans.
This would just seem like a bit of the old "B.M.F. (US Gov. Remix)" if the FDA wasn't looking to cast an FDA-centric dragnet across the internet in order to achieve its goal of… well… being liked?
Here's a list of everywhere and everything the FDA wants to "monitor" for "sentiment."
Must draw from multiple social media channels, including (but not limited to): blogs, forums, Twitter, social networking, etc.
Must draw from mainstream media sources
Must draw from photos, audio and video sources
Must draw from open source data sets, including, e-commerce sites Amazon, drugstore.com, etc.),
Must draw from proprietary data sets
Must allow for network, nodal analyses of communications channels, influencers, propagators, etc.
The contractor providing is given the option of doing the work onsite at the FDA or on its own premises and must be able to create a robust program that is easy, accessible, powerful and deeply technical. Said contractor must also be able to discern the meaning of the following word salad without mocking the agency or consulting a third-party interpreter.
Gain access to the message impact to the geographic area, determine influencers and create analytics to better target the outreach of public health messages to various audiences.
Why should the FDA care what the public is thinking (or at least spreading all over the internet), or why should it care so much that it's willing to task a contractor with sifting through nearly everything that can be publicly posted in order to make small adjustments to its PR efforts? Is it really worthwhile to chase down something this nebulous? The FDA obviously believes it is. This is its second attempt to spy on social media.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140108/20595625813/fda-wants-to-dig-through-everyones-stuff-order-to-monitor-online-sentiment.shtml
The Energy Department wants to see what's inside your home:
The Energy Department is rolling out new, improved software to help Americans measure the energy efficiency of their homes.
DOE says its energy-scoring software -- called the Home Energy Scoring Tool -- is like a vehicle's mile-per-gallon rating because it allows homeowners to compare the energy performance of their homes to other homes nationwide. It also provides homeowners with suggestions for improving their homes' efficiency.
The software is part of the government's effort to reduce the nation's energy consumption; but it's also billed as a way to keep home-retrofitting going, at a time when stimulus funds for weather-proofing have run out.The Home Energy Scoring Tool "can be a powerful motivator in getting homeowners to make energy efficiency improvements," DOE says. "It's also a great way to help trained workers enter the private sector energy improvement market as funding for weatherization efforts decline."
Right now, getting your home scored (spied upon) is voluntary.
To produce a Home Energy Score, a trained, "qualified assessor" comes to your home -- for a fee -- and collects approximately 40 pieces of data about the home's "envelope" (e.g., walls, windows, heating and cooling systems) during an hour-long walk-through. Based on the home's characteristics, the DOE software estimates the home's annual energy use, assuming "typical homeowner behavior." (allowing a government agent to snoop around your home without a warrant is NEVER a good idea)
The software then converts the estimated energy use into a score, based on a 10-point scale (10 being the most energy-efficient). The 1-10 scale accounts for differences in weather conditions by using the zip code to assign the house to one of more than 1,000 weather stations.
In addition to showing the home's current energy efficiency -- or inefficiency -- the score also shows where a home would rank if all of the energy-saving improvements identified during the home walk-through were made. That may prompt some homeowners to buy new windows or doors, for example, boosting the market for home retro-fitters.
DOE recommends getting a Home Energy Score "as soon as the program becomes available in your area." The program launched in 2012, and only single-family homes and townhouses can be scored.
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/susan-jones/doe-plugs-energy-rating-homes-similar-mpg-rating-cars
Google's purchase of Nest 'smart thermostat' a threat to our privacy:
Google's $3.2 million acquisition of Nest, a technology company best known for its "smart thermostat" that tracks people in their own homes, has prompted fears over users' privacy.
The Nest Learning Thermostat uses motion sensors to detect movement within a home, learns its user's habits and adjusts heat settings accordingly.
Considering Google's history of sharing information with advertisers and the government, Nest users "have reasons to feel discomfited", says Rakesh Sharma in Forbes magazine.
Peter Higgins, an activist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, tells Forbes that "technology companies have a history of putting out carefully worded statements and then figuring out a way to do what they want to do".
Google could easily combine Nest data with its other services to gain an even more complete picture of your movements, says Higgins. For example, it would be relatively easy for Google to establish that someone left their home after receiving an email from their girlfriend.
"When combined with other things Google knows about you, data collected inside your home could turn out to have considerable value to advertisers," says Richard Waters in the Financial Times. If a smart thermostat can work out when you have woken up or returned home, imagine how valuable that would be when Google is trying to work out the best time to serve you a relevant advert, he says.
Here's a list of the ways Google/NSA spies on Americans:
Google has mobile access via your smartphones and various apps on multiple platforms.
Google has multiple ways into your living room via Android and Chromecast, a streaming TV gadget, as well as tablets and PCs.
The company had tried to monitor energy usage with utilities, but scrapped the plan in 2011.
Google's Android will increasingly be in your car.
And Google is working the robot market.
http://www.theweek.co.uk/technology/56848/google-buys-nest-smart-thermostat-threat-privacy
Google argues anything flowing across open WiFi is fair game:
After launching Street View in 2007, Google learned that the cars it had travel the world to take photographs had inadvertently collected some 600 gigabytes of private data from unencrypted Wi-Fi networks in more than 30 countries.
The collected data included "personal emails, usernames, passwords, videos, and documents" before Google purportedly corrected the issue.
Lead plaintiff Benjamin Joffe and others say Google violated various points of the federal Wiretap Act, which prohibits the interception of "wire, oral, or electronic communication," except in a few instances, while collecting data for Street View between 2007 and 2010.
The Wiretap Act provides an exemption for "electronic communication made through an electronic communication system" that is "readily accessible to the general public." Unscrambled radio and television broadcasts fall under this exemption.
In its motion to dismiss the proposed class action, Google had argued that all data transmitted over any Wi-Fi network is an electronic "radio communication," and thus exempt, just as any other radio broadcast, from the prohibition on interception of the same. It supported this argument by defining radio communication as "any information transmitted using radio wave." Google also justified the interception of unencrypted WiFi networks because they are "readily accessible to the general public.”
http://www.courthousenews.com/2013/12/27/64106.htm