Google's Sidewalk Labs Leaked Document Reveals Company's Early Vision For Data Collection, Tax Powers, Criminal Justice (theglobeandmail.com) 39
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Globe and Mail: A confidential Sidewalk Labs document from 2016 lays out the founding vision of the Google-affiliated development company, which included having the power to levy its own property taxes, track and predict people's movements and control some public services. The document, which The Globe and Mail has seen, also describes how people living in a Sidewalk community would interact with and have access to the space around them -- an experience based, in part, on how much data they're willing to share, and which could ultimately be used to reward people for "good behavior." Known internally as the "yellow book," the document was designed as a pitch book for the company, and predates Sidewalk's relationship and formal agreements with Toronto by more than a year. Peppered with references to Disney theme parks and noted futurist Buckminster Fuller, it says Sidewalk intended to "overcome cynicism about the future."
But the 437-page book documents how much private control of city services and city life Google parent company Alphabet Inc.'s leadership envisioned when it created the company, which could soon be entitled to some of the most valuable underdeveloped real estate in North America, estimated by one firm to be worth more than half-a-billion dollars. Since 2017, Sidewalk has been in negotiations with the government agency Waterfront Toronto to redevelop a lucrative section of the city's derelict eastern waterfront. Both parties have been working toward a development deal ahead of an Oct. 31 vote, which The Globe reported Tuesday is expected to be on terms that are favorable to Waterfront Toronto. That includes a reduction in the amount of land Sidewalk would have control over, better guarantees for privacy in the neighborhood and better opportunities for Canadian entities to profit from innovations there. "Sidewalk will require tax and financing authority to finance and provide services, including the ability to impose, capture and reinvest property taxes," the book said. The company would also create and control its own public services, including charter schools, special transit systems and a private road infrastructure.
As for public safety and criminal justice, the book mentions "an alternative approach to jail," using data from so-called "root-cause asseessment tools." "This would guide officials in determining a response when someone is arrested, such as sending someone to a substance abuse center," reports The Globe. "The overall criminal justice system and policing of serious crimes and emergencies would be 'likely to remain within the purview of the host government's police department,' however."
Sidewalk Labs released its official plan in June, which includes building ten new buildings, integrating Toronto's light-rail system to serve the new neighborhood, and installing public Wi-Fi.
But the 437-page book documents how much private control of city services and city life Google parent company Alphabet Inc.'s leadership envisioned when it created the company, which could soon be entitled to some of the most valuable underdeveloped real estate in North America, estimated by one firm to be worth more than half-a-billion dollars. Since 2017, Sidewalk has been in negotiations with the government agency Waterfront Toronto to redevelop a lucrative section of the city's derelict eastern waterfront. Both parties have been working toward a development deal ahead of an Oct. 31 vote, which The Globe reported Tuesday is expected to be on terms that are favorable to Waterfront Toronto. That includes a reduction in the amount of land Sidewalk would have control over, better guarantees for privacy in the neighborhood and better opportunities for Canadian entities to profit from innovations there. "Sidewalk will require tax and financing authority to finance and provide services, including the ability to impose, capture and reinvest property taxes," the book said. The company would also create and control its own public services, including charter schools, special transit systems and a private road infrastructure.
As for public safety and criminal justice, the book mentions "an alternative approach to jail," using data from so-called "root-cause asseessment tools." "This would guide officials in determining a response when someone is arrested, such as sending someone to a substance abuse center," reports The Globe. "The overall criminal justice system and policing of serious crimes and emergencies would be 'likely to remain within the purview of the host government's police department,' however."
Sidewalk Labs released its official plan in June, which includes building ten new buildings, integrating Toronto's light-rail system to serve the new neighborhood, and installing public Wi-Fi.
Errrm ok (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't really care about Google or Alphabet, not really inclined to trust them but this seems one of those breathless panty twisting articles that's much ado about nothing.
If they want to take over responsibility for all sorts of infrastructure then yeah, they're going to have to have some fees, in this context calling them taxes seems right.
Not sure I'm inclined to slam them for trying to find an alternative to jail for certain behavior, they're kind of forced to since they absolutely wouldn't have jurisdiction to incarcerate anyone.
Anyway, sure maybe this is another example of Mr Evil Empire company, or maybe it's just somebody trying to figure out how you could alternatively implement all the overhead bullshit we have to have due to the modern social expression of millions of years of evolution (ie humans sometimes do stupid shit and you frequently have to clean up after them)
Re:Errrm ok (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not one of those guys that rants about how corporations are evil, but it's important to at least recognize that most for-profit corporations are amoral at best. That is, they exist to make money, and everything else is of secondary importance. The key point in dealing with corporations is to acknowledge that they're necessary and useful for what they are and do, but to ensure you remain reasonably detached (or detachable) from them. That is, you never want to be voluntarily beholden to a single corporation, or things tend to start going south in a hurry.
In other words, the very last thing I want is to give a corporation undue influence over a big part of my city's infrastructure, unless there is literally no alternative. And frankly, the last company I'd trust to invest in my city is Google. They're well known at this point for jumping into new and interesting projects, and abandoning them after a few years if they're not looking promising. If the citizens of Toronto are fine with it, more power to them, and our thanks for being a big old guinea pig.
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I don't even get the 'alternative to jail' thing.
In Canada people don't "press charges", for example. The crown does. In fact, it doesn't matter if someone WANTS to prosecute someone, or not! The crown decides if a crime has been committed, and that's it!
This has benefits and drawbacks. One benefit is that it becomes more difficult for people to get out of a crime, via influence or threat. It doesn't matter if the victim decides "I've been threatened, I want to drop the charges". Nope. Not going to h
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Yeah, I think the issue is that is not a working document, it is apparently Google, pie in the sky, everybody spit ball ideas doc in preparation for the efforts in Toronto. The vast majority of it did not make the cut into theiir working docs which themselves almost certainly went through culling and revision.
You give me 15 people and a problem to solve and a spit balling session and I guarantee there will be a bunch stupid ideas.
Stop Google now (Score:2)
Stop Google now, before it's too late.
Full cirle (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Full cirle (Score:4, Insightful)
Orwellian company towns....
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Live the Google Disney theme park existence of life, obey or be considered mentally deficient and be consigned to the rehabilitation centre for concentrated enhanced therapy kind of like enhanced interrogation.
Google is basically copying the fucking Scientologists and how they fucking behave on not-Freewinds and once in there is no out because if you want to leave you must be suffering from a mental condition.
Google taking Scientology globally to your neighbourhood, it really is as fucking as evil and it
Sidewalk community? (Score:2)
Is that, like the homeless?
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All that hard work, the loans and study to end up working surrounded by waste and trash while working to sell more ads.
Psycho-pass (Score:2)
Wait, is Google building the Sibyl System?
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Of course not. It's only a life encompassing Panopticon; what could go wrong?
"you are Number 6" (Score:3)
I'm imagining Google Balloons that come and get you when you misbehave... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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once they finally nail down the causes for wrongthink, misbehaving won't be an option anymore.
The noted futurist Eric Blair predicted just this kind of society decades ago -- it's actually quite refreshing to see any kind of prediction in the tech world come to fruition (even if it's 35 years late).
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Both gave us different visions for how society might evolve. They were warnings not effing handbooks for the likes of Google.
Google is just plain EVIL. They are leeching off our very existence. Now they want people to live in their totally controlled world where Google supplies their every need. Fuck No.
The good censor (Score:2)
Who thinks it sounds like a good idea (Score:4, Insightful)
Google is Evil (Score:1)
I'm exasperated. Whom has not received the memo yet?
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Re: The root cause is many people are entitled jer (Score:1)
I'm familiar with soccer moms and Karen, but adrenaline junkie caucasian women caught up in petty larceny for the thrill of it?? This is the first I've heard of that.
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Edith Bunker - notorious klepper.
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Probably literally 99% of property crimes that are committed in first world countries by people who aren't addicts are stealing for pleasure, and most of them are not "marginalized" or truly poor either.
[citation needed]
Please include measurements by dollar value.
Google Nation (Score:3)
It's long been a dream (Score:2, Informative)
...of many Google executives to make Google Jail a real thing. This is how they intend to accomplish it.
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With the downside being the whole city becomes the jail.Next up they'll want to writing the laws too.... oh NVM they already have lobbyists for that.
Return of the company town (Score:2)
The company town returns. George Pullman's town of (what else) Pullman was perhaps the most famous in the US, but there have been many such in the last 400 years. Never turns out well in the long run for the designers and initial operators though.
and when they pull the plug? (Score:2)
What happens if and when Google doesn't meet whatever performance metric they are aiming for and cancel the project? Does this all fall back in the city's lap?
My guess is they would get more desperate people than anyone. I mean who else would volunteer to be treated like that.
You've Got To Pray (Score:1)
Whats the problem? (Score:2)
If you don't like it, don't live or go there. Seems like "not a problem" to me. Or are they planning to somehow kidnap people and transport them against their will, and then keep them there against their will?
Not Disney (Score:2)
I'd trust 100 Walt Disney's (original EPCOT, and Reedy Creek Improvement District) and about 40 Walt Disney Co's (Celebration, et al.) before I trusted a single tech company like Alphabet, whose entire business model revolves around invasion of privacy.
Seriously, CtOS from Watch_Dogs was supposed to be something we *didn't* look forward to.
Taxation without representation (Score:2)
I sold my soul to the company 1984 (Score:2)
I can't find anything good about this idea. We already had company control of entire towns long before technology created a virtual x-ray into one's life and it still turned out horribly. We also already know how horrible for profit incarceration is.
It's like they ripped the cover off of a copy of 1984, stuck their own on it and inserted pages that praise the pre-union busting era.
I think you'd have to be out of your gourd to opt into such a community, but you know what they say about a fool and their money
I thought this was supposed to happen in Detroit. (Score:2)
Dystopian SciFi (Score:2)
A privatised city & government? Did Google watch the 1987 Robocop movie & think, "Yeah! This is a great idea! We should, like, totally do this, maaan!"
Paul Verhoeven did a tonne of research into some of the darkest periods of modern history (You know, Nazis, Fascists, dictators, despots, & populist nationalist movements.) in order to come up with his dystopian SciFi vision of the future & now Google are trying to make it happen? How about we say NO & put them on trial at the Hague?