Nest says that it’s not going to just hand over its customer data to Google willy-nilly post-acquisition – in a blog post sent to TechCrunch penned by Nest founder Tony Fadell, a question and answer section at the end contains the following:
Will Nest customer data be shared with Google?
Our privacy policy clearly limits the use of customer information to providing and improving Nest’s products and services. We’ve always taken privacy seriously and this will not change.
This contrasts with some of the reactions making the rounds on Twitter, which express apprehension about the fact that Google will have access to Nest’s data, which knows, for example, where you are in your house.
https://twitter.com/ryan/status/422839526684254209
It’s interesting because the immediately apparent upside of Google acquiring Nest would be the data it stands to gain access to. Still, the quote above indicates that it won’t use data from its devices any differently than it does now, and Nest will continue to operate as a separate entity. There’s no outright “No” answer to the question before the explanation about the privacy policy, however (I’d bet anonymized data still gets shared), so we’ve reached out to Google and Nest to hopefully clarify exactly how the relationship will work.
In the meantime, the startup’s early supporters stand to make a lot of money on the deal.
