I'm not sure I would call it "free". Sure, you don't have to give google money, but on the other hand, you have to give them them all sorts of other info. This is not free. It's time people started acknowledging this.
free is defined in termed of payment of monies. You're thinking of no string attached, or some other word or phrase.
While this may seem like semantics, it is the basis of communications, that we all agree on the definition of certain words, otherwise we have linguistic chaos.
So, yes, while it doesn't require any monetary payment (free), there are strings attached.
True that's how most consumers think of "free" ... I think it's high time that consumers start thinking more deeply about the transaction(s) they are engaging in with companies like google, facebook, etc when they use "free" services. These are not charities, they are for-profit businesses (and there's nothing wrong with that) ... But I think consumers should inform themselves about the full nature of the transaction(s) they engage in when using "free" services. I know, there are terms of services, eulas, etc that people click "I agree" when signing up... But I would bet that 95% of people read NONE of that stuff. Buyer beware? Maybe.
Equally as important (for some people), is that these free services are sometimes only free up until they gain enough mass to become a real business. People should consider these free services as limited time offers, which may require switching sometime later.
I pay the carriers for cell phone plan but they give out my call / text records to law enforcement for a pay without warrant anyways. I don't think Gmail would hand local law enforcement such data without a warrant. Even if it did, it would still be no worse.
I know we think that paying makes us customers and they will care about us. However, it probably does not apply to naturally monopolistic markets of traditional/cell telephony and Internet services providers.
Um, I don't read any of that stuff, and yet it's common sense that FB, Google, etc. store your data. It's not that most people don't know -- it's that they don't care.
It's termed as free because most people only care about the financial side of payment. If people can get a service like this for no charge I bet most couldn't care what information they are giving Google.
I bet most people don't have a full understanding of what information they end up giving google by using google services like gmail, voice, even "just" search. I bet google likes it that way.
Can you expand on what information is required to use this feature? I assume you can create a new account with little to no information (or fake information) and use it.
What about it? Not sure about Canada, but in the US, at least, they definitely can't record it without at least one party knowing, and the state-by-state laws on that point are varied enough that if you start recording one of your conversations, google voice warns both sides of the conversation.
Additionally: "Google does not claim any ownership in any of the content that you or your callers upload, transmit or store in your Google Voice account. We will not use any of your content for any purpose except to provide you with the Service."
http://www.google.com/intl/en/googlevoice/legal-notices.html
Come to think of it, does anyone know of where google makes money here? Is it just international calls? Even the voice transcription training probably isn't that lucrative, because you have to have users click on a message and say "Donate this voicemail" for it to be used as training data.
Thanks for clarifying, it's good to know that they are not supposed to access the content of voice calls. Maybe it's simply a loss-leader to get people jumping onto the google wagon with the rest of their services.
Google doesn't make money on Google Voice. It serves the same purpose as GOOG-411 served. To receive and process a large number of voice samples (from voicemails) to improve their voice search products. There's probably some other pie-in-the-sky ideas for Google Voice, but that's the only one I know of.
Do you have any basis for that? See the second and third paragraphs in the comment you're responding to. By my reading, they can't use those unless you "donate" the voicemails explicitly, which I doubt anyone does (at least I've never bothered to, even for the more ridiculously transcribed ones).
Seriously, has anybody claimed that a service is completely free?
Who in their right mind would give something completely free, no strings attached?
Start acknowledging? I'm pretty sick of people mumbling "If you're not paying for a product, you're a product" every time Google, et al releases a free service.
Similarly the air you breath is not free. But if we were to get that technical we will have to invent words for various levels of "free". In this case let's just agree that the title meant "no exchange of money".
