Nest co-founder Matt Rogers on Monday announced on its blog the Nest Developer Program, an awesome initiative that will allow developers to use their devices and apps together with Google’s Nest products for even more advanced home control. What Nest didn’t say in its announcement is that Google will obviously be one of the partners involved, which means some data will be shared with the company. However, Nest later confirmed to The Wall Street Journal that limited data will be shared with Google, in order to enable Google Now functionality.
Rogers told the Journal in an interview that Google will connect some of its apps to Nest, in order to know when users are at home or not, and thus make controlling the Nest thermostat possible via automatic Google Now or active voice-based commands.
“We’re not becoming part of the greater Google machine,” Rogers said, revealing that users will be able to opt in for their information to be shared with Google, further reinforcing Nest privacy-related beliefs.
What Nest will share with Google and others is user location data, but not email address, name or home address. Furthermore, Google and others will have to explain users what data they’re using and how they’re going to use it. Unliking Google and Nest products will also be possible, Rogers revealed.
“We’re not telling Google anything that it doesn’t already know,” Rogers said. Services like Google Maps and Google Now already keep track of users, especially if they’re actually using these services, with particular emphasis on the later, which needs to collect lots of personal data to be able to effectively deliver automated notifications.
