Roomba Wants to Map our Homes and Sell the Data

[EasyAce]

By Phil Baker
https://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2017/07/25/roomba-wants-to-map-our-homes-and-sell-the-data/

Add iRobot, the maker of Roomba robotic vacuum cleaners, to the list of companies that put greed before customer privacy. You’d think selling us expensive vacuum cleaners that maneuver around our home, cleaning by themselves, would be a fine business. But, no, that’s not enough.

Colin Angle, iRobot CEO, told Reuters, that iRobot is considering the sale of our home mapping data to other companies such as Google, Apple, and Amazon. As the robotic vacuum cleaner travels throughout our home picking up dirt, it's also picking up data that includes room dimensions, room and home layouts, and all of the furnishings, and transmitting it back to the company. . . .

. . . Needless to say, his comments did not go over too well with privacy advocates and some of his customers. While Angle says “allowed to be shared” and their terms of service allow Roomba owners to opt out of data sharing, the fine print buried on their site gives them permission to share your personal information without permission . . .

Makes me glad I still use a good old Electrolux . . . I don't want some geek in some room somewhere
getting designs on my house while I clean it . . .



(Well, it's not that old, it was made circa 2000, before Electrolux pulled out of the U.S. and the employees
of the U.S. plant bought the plant and continued making real Luxes under the name Aerus . . .)

[Cripplecreek]

I'm very tempted to go out and spend 5 or 7 hundred dollars on a commercial Sensor vacuum like are used at work.

Very basic and very durable.

[EasyAce]

I'm very tempted to go out and spend 5 or 7 hundred dollars on a commercial Sensor vacuum like are used at work.

Very basic and very durable.

Long as it isn't bagless and doesn't have any data-sending sensors in the nozzles.

(I despise bagless vacuum cleaners---I don't use a vacuum cleaner only to get a faceful of dust when I dump
the dirt chamber. I bought my Lux rebuilt five years ago and bought a gross of self-sealing bags concurrently, and
I've had a clean house and no faceful of dust when I throw the full bag out.)

[Cripplecreek]

Long as it isn't bagless and doesn't have any data-sending sensors in the nozzles.

(I despise bagless vacuum cleaners---I don't use a vacuum cleaner only to get a faceful of dust when I dump
the dirt chamber. I bought my Lux rebuilt five years ago and bought a gross of self-sealing bags concurrently, and
I've had a clean house and no faceful of dust when I throw the full bag out.)

Nope, it uses bags.

It weighs as much as my Corolla but vacuums better.

[Wingnut]

If my "roomba" maps my home and sells the data she is going straight back Guatamala.