Should the internet be regulated? Should internet companies be subject to the same regulatory oversight as financial services providers, lawyers, and publishers? Indeed, aren't they simply publishers?
This week these questions were asked by a panel of academics, business leaders, and policymakers at a Westminster eForum event in London titled Next Steps for Online Regulation .
This is the first of two reports from the conference, reflecting its twin discussion streams and separate Chairs. The first looked at the road travelled so far and at what progress, if any, has been made. It was chaired by Baroness Kidron, Member
of the House of Lords and Chair of the 5Rights Foundation , an organisation that articulates children's rights online
Regulation has to be about actions 203 about what people actually do, not their speech or beliefs, according to Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve. The Chair of the second half of the Westminster Eforum debate this week on regulating the internet 203
which explored the practical forms this could take
Google has acknowledged that one of its home alarm products contained a secret microphone. Product specifications for the Nest Guard, an all-in-one alarm, keypad and motion sensor, available since 2017, had made no mention of the listening
device.
Nest Guard is an all-in-one alarm, keypad, and motion sensor but, despite being announced well over a year ago, the word microphone was only added to the product's specification this month.
But earlier this month, the firm said a software update would make Nest Guard voice-controlled. On Twitter, concerned Nest owners were told the microphone has not been used up to this point.
In response to criticism, Google claimed:
The on-device microphone was never intended to be a secret and should have been listed in the tech specs. That was an error on our part. The microphone has never been on and is only activated when users specifically enable the option.
This is the kind of thing that makes me paranoid of smart home devices, commented Nick Heer , who writes the Pixel Envy blog.
If I owned one of these things and found out that the world's biggest advertising company hid a microphone in my home for a year, I'd be livid.
Should the internet be regulated? Should internet companies be subject to the same regulatory oversight as financial services providers, lawyers, and publishers? Indeed, aren't they simply publishers?
Google has acknowledged that one of its home alarm products contained a secret microphone. Product specifications for the Nest Guard, an all-in-one alarm, keypad and motion sensor, available since 2017, had made no mention of the listening
device.
