(Natural News) Like all the other tech giants, Google has been dogged by issues surrounding the way in which it protects the privacy of its users and what it does with their personal information.

The company has had to deal with allegations that it allowed contractors to listen to audio snippets recorded by users, supposedly to improve service offerings. Experts have also voiced serious concerns about Google Chrome, which is now the world's most popular desktop browser. This is worrying because a huge number of sensitive transactions are now taking place via Chrome, and there are real concerns that personal information may not be protected on the browser.

Does this sound like a company that should now have not only audio but also video access to everything that happens in our homes? Google's new Nest Hub Max is a smart display unit that comes equipped with a 6.5-megapixel facial recognition camera that identifies you and monitors all your actions and is not equipped with a physical shutter to forcibly prevent it monitoring the happenings in your home.

Does that sound like a good idea to anyone out there? (Related: STUNNED Android users discover that Google allows mobile phone apps to read all your Gmail.)

What is the Google Nest Hub Max?

The Daily Dot provides more information about the functions offered by the Nest Hub Max:

It's the first smart home product from Google to include a camera so you can make video calls. It looks like a tablet propped up on its side, and it works similarly to smart speakers, such as Amazon Echo. …

The Nest Hub Max is essentially a smart speaker that lets you control connected smart home devices, and comes with a display and camera.

It's not too dissimilar from the Google Home Hub, which Google just rebranded as Nest Hub. The new device has a 10-inch HD screen. It looks like a tablet in landscape orientation that's propped up on a base. The base contains a speaker. At the top of the device are a camera and microphones.

The device allows you to check in on what's happening in your home when you're out, and because of its facial recognition capabilities, will detect when you enter the room and provide personalized information to you, such as your day's appointments, the weather forecast, and so on.