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When Portal's initial buzz finally stops, this is the moment we will remember the most. A company like Facebook never had the right time to launch a product such as Portal, but in terms of optics, 2018 should probably have been canceled.
Our follow-up title, "Facebook, are you kidding? ? "Seems to sum up the fallout.
But society persists in its intention to launch its internal material product and, to the extent that its intentions can be considered pure, there are certainly worse motives than the purpose of the connection. dear ones. This is a promise brought by the video chat technology and Facebook's technology stack.
The praise the company might have received for the execution of the product, however, quickly took over on another task of public relations. Here is Recode with another rather simple title. "It turns out that Facebook could actually use the data collected on its home portal video device to target you with ads."
During a conversation with TechCrunch this week, the Facebook executive "Boz" Bosworth said that it was the result.
"I was not in the room with that," says Bosworth, "but what we've said is that we thought that the question concerned the advertising served on the portal. For the moment, Facebook ads are not showing on Portal. Obviously, if another service, such as YouTube or other, uses ads and you have the option to display them on the portal device. Facebook posts advertisements on Portal. "
Facebook is striving to draw a line, seeking to distinguish the great need to place its own microphones and camera in consumer shows from the standard data collection type that is the heart of much of the monetization model of the site.
"[T] What's new in this camera is the camera and the microphone," he explains. "This is a place where we have gone too far in terms of security and privacy to ensure that consumers can trust the electrical level that the device does only what they expect."
Facebook was clearly trying to answer these questions. bud before launch. Without prompting, the company has been quick to catalog the many levels of security and confidentiality that have been preserved, ranging from encryption to real plastic, which the consumer can hang on top of the device to serve as a plug. # 39; goal.
Last night, along with the announcement of availability, Facebook published a separate article outlining privacy issues. Portal: Privacy and Ads details three key points:
- Facebook does not listen to, view or store the contents of your video calls on the portal. This means that nothing you say on a portal video call is used by Facebook or for advertising purposes.
- Video calls from the portal are encrypted, so your calls are secure.
- Smart cameras and Smart Sound use artificial intelligence technology running locally on the portal. , not on Facebook's servers. The Portal camera does not identify you.
Facebook quickly explains that, despite what he considered a misunderstanding, he has not changed his approach since our launch. But none of this means, of course, that the device will not collect data that can be used to target other ads. That's what Facebook does.
"I can be quite specific on the camera and the microphone, on the audio or video content, and say that none of these things are used to inform the commercials, it's a end point, "said the executive at TechCrunch. . "I can be very, very confident when I make this statement."
However, he adds, "Once past the camera and the microphones, this device works much like the other mobile devices you have. In fact, it is powered by Messenger and, in other spaces, by Facebook. All properties that more than a billion Messenger users are accustomed to are identical to what is happening on the device. "
As a hypothesis, Bosworth indicates that cross-platform advertisements could be used for video calls, which do so frequently – a clbadification, one imagines, that would apply to anyone spending $ 199 on a device. of video chat of this nature. "If you frequently use video calls," he begins, "there might be an ad-targeting cluster for people interested in video calling. You would be a part of that. This is true if you often use video calls on your mobile phone or video calls on Portal. "
Facebook may have taken a decisive turn with this one. While it is possible to distinguish between cameras / microphones and the rest of the software stack, there is no doubt that trust has been eroded after months of discussion around major news items such as Cambridge Analytica. Once this notion of trust has been violated, ask users to suddenly buy an autonomous hardware component they did not realize they needed to return a few months ago
"True, the headwinds to which We are confronted By making sure that consumers trust the brand, we all know them and, frankly, we are ready for the challenge, "says Bosworth. "It's good to have a closer look. We have gone through a tremendous transformation within the company over the last six to eight months to try to focus on those challenges. "
The executive believes in fact that the introduction of a device such as Portal could actually serve to counter this mistrust, rather than to exacerbate it.
" This device is exactly what people expect from Facebook, he explains. "It's a device that focuses on the closest friends and family, as well as the experiences and connections they have. with these people, on the one hand, I hear you, it's a headwind, on the other hand, it's exactly what we need. tells a story we want people to hear, what matters most to us, that people sink deeper and make more sense. "
[19659002] If Portal is ultimately a success it will not be because the product will serve to convince people that society is more focused on interactions ignificatives than on the sale of ads before. It will be because our memories are short. These kinds of concerns fade quite quickly in the face of new products, especially in a 24-hour news environment where everything is fundamentally bad all the time.
The question that arises is whether Portal can offer a sufficient distinction from other products. force users to buy. Certainly, the company helped revive this process by offering reasonably priced products. However, even with clever augmented reality features and well-produced camera tracking, Facebook must really distinguish this device from an Echo Show or Google Home Hub.
Facebook's first goals for the product are probably quite modest. In the conversations that preceded the launch, the company has positioned this as a kind of learning moment. This began when the company introduced the first versions of the products in homes as part of a private beta, and continues to some extent now that the device is marketed around the world. Once in a hurry, the company offered nothing concrete.
"This is the first Facebook brand material," says Bosworth. "It's early, I did not know we were expecting as much sales as we expected from a market big enough for us to learn, iterate and improve."
That's right, certainly – and among my biggest complaints with the camera Apart from the video chat feature mentioned above, the portal does not look like a particularly elaborate device.There is an extremely limited selection of preloaded apps and no application store The video beyond the short films offered by Facebook is perhaps a big one at the moment
During my review of Portal +, I could not To avoid thinking that the product would have worked as well – or maybe even better, in addition or in joint production with Amazon.However, this partnership is limited to the inclusion of Alexa on the # In fact, the company confirms that We can expect to have additional equipment in the next few years.
As it stands, Facebook claims to be open to a wide range of possibilities, depending on consumer demand. This is something that could even, potentially, extend to camera recording, a feature that would further scramble the lines of what the onboard camera and microphone can and should do.
"At the moment, there is no possible recording device," says Bosworth. "The idea that a camera with microphones can be used as a camera with microphones to record things. We wanted to start in a position where people felt that they could understand what the device was, have a lot of confidence and bring it home. There is an obvious area where you can expand it. There are probably also areas that are not obvious to us […] It is not fair to say that it is a kind of beta period. We only decided to ship it when we felt we had crossed the threshold of the finished product. "
From the point of view of privacy protection, all this still gives the impression of being killed by a million. For the moment, however, the company does not record anything at the local level and does not intend to do so. Given the kind of year the company has had with respect to the privacy lens, it is probably best to keep it that way.
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