Re: A question about Google and Google voice

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Rob Willenberg <rob () willenbergs com>
Date: April 13, 2009 5:27:43 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Re: [IP] Re:   A question about Google and Google voice

I'm not sure what the legal status of this is around the rest of the  
country, but if they are recording conversations, this would be  
illegal in Washington State without consent from all parties  
associated with the call:

http://apps.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=9.73.030

RCW 9.73.030Intercepting, recording, or divulging private  
communication — Consent required — Exceptions.
(1) Except as otherwise provided in this chapter, it shall be unlawful  
for any individual, partnership, corporation, association, or the  
state of Washington, its agencies, and political subdivisions to  
intercept, or record any:

     (a) Private communication transmitted by telephone, telegraph,  
radio, or other device between two or more individuals between points  
within or without the state by any device electronic or otherwise  
designed to record and/or transmit said communication regardless how  
such device is powered or actuated, without first obtaining the  
consent of all the participants in the communication;

     (b) Private conversation, by any device electronic or otherwise  
designed to record or transmit such conversation regardless how the  
device is powered or actuated without first obtaining the consent of  
all the persons engaged in the conversation.

     (2) Notwithstanding subsection (1) of this section, wire  
communications or conversations (a) of an emergency nature, such as  
the reporting of a fire, medical emergency, crime, or disaster, or (b)  
which convey threats of extortion, blackmail, bodily harm, or other  
unlawful requests or demands, or (c) which occur anonymously or  
repeatedly or at an extremely inconvenient hour, or (d) which relate  
to communications by a hostage holder or barricaded person as defined  
in RCW 70.85.100, whether or not conversation ensues, may be recorded  
with the consent of one party to the conversation.

     (3) Where consent by all parties is needed pursuant to this  
chapter, consent shall be considered obtained whenever one party has  
announced to all other parties engaged in the communication or  
conversation, in any reasonably effective manner, that such  
communication or conversation is about to be recorded or transmitted:  
PROVIDED, That if the conversation is to be recorded that said  
announcement shall also be recorded.

     (4) An employee of any regularly published newspaper, magazine,  
wire service, radio station, or television station acting in the  
course of bona fide news gathering duties on a full-time or  
contractual or part-time basis, shall be deemed to have consent to  
record and divulge communications or conversations otherwise  
prohibited by this chapter if the consent is expressly given or if the  
recording or transmitting device is readily apparent or obvious to the  
speakers. Withdrawal of the consent after the communication has been  
made shall not prohibit any such employee of a newspaper, magazine,  
wire service, or radio or television station from divulging the  
communication or conversation.





On Apr 12, 2009, at 1:22 PM, David Farber wrote:

> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: Sunil Garg <sunil () sunilgarg com>
> Date: April 12, 2009 3:05:12 PM EDT
> To: dave () farber net
> Subject: Re: [IP] A question about Google and Google voice
>
> Marissa Mayer confirmed this 1.5 years ago with regards to Google 411.
> The speech recognition experts that we have say: If you want us to  
> build a really robust speech model, we need a lot of phonemes, which  
> is a syllable as spoken by a particular voice with a particular  
> intonation. So we need a lot of people talking, saying things so  
> that we can ultimately train off of that. ... So 1-800-GOOG-411 is  
> about that: Getting a bunch of different speech samples so that when  
> you call up or we're trying to get the voice out of video, we can do  
> it with high accuracy.
>
> http://www.infoworld.com/print/40539
>
> Regards,
> Sunil
>
>
> On Sun, Apr 12, 2009 at 11:40 AM, David Farber <dave () farber net>  
> wrote:
> I have heard reasonable support for  belief that one of the reasons  
> that Google has implemented Google voice is a belief that voice  
> control will be an important input path in the future. What better  
> way to gather a sampling of a wide variety of voices and potentially  
> a very large experimental test data set   for voice recognition than  
> to provide a service such as Google voice.
>
> If, and I have no direct evidence to support or deny this, they are  
> recording and saving the conversations from Google voice this raises  
> a critical question about privacy and maybe a legal question  or two.
>
> So I am asking readers to keep their ears open for any information  
> that would support or deny this concern.
>
> Dave
>
>
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