The IT Nerd

First let me explain what Portal from Facebook is and then I will explain why you might not be able to trust them. Portal is a video phone that is supposed to make video chatting through Facebook Messenger much easier. The wide-angle built-in camera will follow the user’s movements and create the sense that the user is sharing a room with the caller they’re talking to. Amazon’s Alexa is integrated into Portal, so it can also play music through Spotify or Pandora, play videos, or cycle through photos.

Sounds great right? What could go wrong? Well, this is Facebook we are talking about who can’t be trusted with your data. Why let them see into your home? After all, that sounds like a horrible idea. Ruby Gonzalez, Communications Director at NordVPN, buys into this lack of trust:

“The fact that Facebook made it – and integrated Alexa, an Amazon device that has already betrayed users’ trust multiple times – really seems like a bold and questionable move, Facebook has failed the public time and time again, with Cambridge Analytica, Russian electioneering, and the big recent data leak. It’s hard to imagine anyone with a shred of concern for their privacy and online security spending a couple of hundred bucks on a ‘smartish’ camera any time soon.”

If you want my advice, I’d avoid Portal like the plague.

This entry was posted on October 9, 2018 at 9:54 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags Facebook. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.