The Car of the Future Will Sell Your Data (bloomberg.com) 241
Picture this: You're driving home from work, contemplating what to make for dinner, and as you idle at a red light near your neighborhood pizzeria, an ad offering $5 off a pepperoni pie pops up on your dashboard screen. Are you annoyed that your car's trying to sell you something, or pleasantly persuaded? From a report: Telenav, a company developing in-car advertising software, is betting you won't mind much. Car companies -- looking to earn some extra money -- hope so, too. Automakers have been installing wireless connections in vehicles and collecting data for decades. But the sheer volume of software and sensors in new vehicles, combined with artificial intelligence that can sift through data at ever-quickening speeds, means new services and revenue streams are quickly emerging. The big question for automakers now is whether they can profit off all the driver data they're capable of collecting without alienating consumers or risking backlash from Washington. "Carmakers recognize they're fighting a war over customer data," said Roger Lanctot, who works with automakers on data monetization as a consultant for Strategy Analytics. "Your driving behavior, location, has monetary value, not unlike your search activity."
Maybe the Amiricans won't mind (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Maybe the Amiricans won't mind (Score:5, Interesting)
We have billboards by the road in the UK, lots of them.
However, a pop-up ad in the car is probably illegal. At least, the very first person with one of these cars to claim that the ad distracted them will quickly put and end to the practice.
Re:Maybe the Amiricans won't mind (Score:4, Interesting)
GDPR should be a fairly healthy deterrent to anyone implementing anything like this (that is, if the UK doesn't throw it in the bonfire of EU regulation after 2019).
Re:Maybe the Amiricans won't mind (Score:4, Funny)
Not that I'm for the ads in any way...BUT, if you in the UK are so distracted by a simple ad, how in the hell do you drive while fiddling with the radio/stereo, smoke a cigarette, keep the cold beer between your legs and try to talk on the phone???
I mean, hell...that's the new basic driving test here for men in the US.
The ones for ladies substitute the beer holding for putting on makeup i the car....
But hey, its easier than it used to be when you had to do all that AND shirt the manual transmission. I'm old school and still do that, but most today don't have to pass that qualification.
Re:Maybe the Amiricans won't mind (Score:4, Interesting)
The ones for ladies substitute the beer holding for putting on makeup i the car....
I guess that's because of their innate advantage due to the built in beer bottle holder?
if you in the UK are so distracted by a simple ad, how in the hell do you drive while fiddling with [everything]
Driving while distracted will already get you spanked. It's reasonable to assume that something explicitly intended to distract you will not be looked on kindly by the powers that be.
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Or even better, ads in your social media feeds. Drive past chain restaurants. Lo and Behold! Coupons appear in you social media feeds!
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That is when said self driving car gets a punch, right in the screen.
Re: Maybe the Amiricans won't mind (Score:4, Informative)
Billboards in the UK are allowed in towns and cities but are illegal on high speed Motorways (highways) and dual carriageways for obvious reasons. They are also banned in green countryside areas in the UK too as they are classed as an eyesore.
Re:Maybe the Amiricans won't mind (Score:4, Interesting)
I imagine it has to be a cellular connection in the car, is there a relatively simple way for the average person to disable this communication outlet?
I would have to imagine with new cars being so complex, that the gathering would be difficult if not impossible to stop, but it would seem easy to be able to disable or block the car from phoning home?
Re:Maybe the Amiricans won't mind (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, and it's typically pretty easy once you locate the module. The cellular radios are often socketed and easily removed, and barring that, there's a bunch of ways you could attack and disable the radio from effectively connecting to a tower (e.g. pinning the coax going to the antennae).
Of course once auto manufacturers catch on that people are circumventing their systems, they'll just label them as 'safety' related and lobby to the government to allow punishments for interfering with them.
Re:Maybe the Amiricans won't mind (Score:5, Interesting)
1) This will be part of the "infotainment" system obviously. Have the system do a systems check and refuse to operate any of the display screen functions (radio, navigation etc) unless the system passes all checks.
2) The cell radio is also crucial to things like On-Star, so cooperate with the big insurance companies to make a disabled system more expensive to insure. On the basis that On-Star and automatic collision reporting are "vital safety systems"
3) Many cars now have a "limp home mode" where the vehicle will still operate, but with severely reduced performance. This is intended for things like emissions systems failures, engine computer failure and so on. It would be obvious and straight forward to have a car go into limp home mode if any of the many computers, logic controllers or other electronic parts fail the self check.
4) The easiest and most legally defensible, simply have the check engine or service engine light come on when the self check fails.
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Re:Maybe the Amiricans won't mind (Score:4, Informative)
Fuse does not work. I physically unplugged the OnStar module in my car and I keep getting phone calls from them telling me that my car needs to be taken in for service because they cannot connect to it.
Just tell them you disconnected it because you don't want the OnStar feature. If the calls persist, just hang up on them. They'll eventually get the message. It sounds like you're letting yourself get bullied by your car company. Not a good idea.
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Or just design the ignition system to require a connection before the car will start. (They may need to use a satellite phone system to do it, but cars are so expensive these days that's actually not that big a bump in price.)
Re:Maybe the Amiricans won't mind (Score:5, Insightful)
But, that really can't work, can it?
I mean, there are times and places that you will lose signal, like in a tunnel, or perhaps parts of the country where there isn't great cell coverage, etc....
I would think they would have to take those use cases into account, and if they do..then you just block the signal perpetually...?
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But, that really can't work, can it?
I mean, there are times and places that you will lose signal, like in a tunnel, or perhaps parts of the country where there isn't great cell coverage, etc....
I would think they would have to take those use cases into account, and if they do..then you just block the signal perpetually...?
If I were tasked with this as an engineer, I'd just buffer the data and transmit when comm available. Wouldn't you?
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I'm hoping that's exactly what they're doing....that way it isn't trying to actively disable the car due to non-communication.
So, just let it buffer, while you have the communication antenna blocked or disconnected.
Re:Maybe the Amiricans won't mind (Score:5, Informative)
I disconnected On-Star from my GM Vehicle and odd things started happening, the most annoying of which was the cruise control would randomly stop working. The dealership plugged the On-Star module back in and voila everything worked fine again. They will integrate these systems so that you will not be able to unplug them.
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Hmm..wondering if you leave the module plugged in, can you then find the antenna it uses and cover it with a faraday cage type unit to prevent its transmissions?
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But then you wouldn't be able to set the cruise control speed from the android app. This isn't 2016 anymore, no one wants a car that isn't cloud-enabled.
Re:Maybe the Amiricans won't mind (Score:5, Insightful)
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Not without violating a warranty or EULA.
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I don't know that I've ever signed or even seen a EULA when buying a car...?
And at least in the US, mods do not necessarily negate a warranty....by law.
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Awesome. I did not think I needed more reasons to keep using old cars, but got some anyway...
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Ad blocker for the car? (Score:2)
The more a car networks and spies on its users, the more car privacy tools will be needed.
Recall unsafe at any speed?
The car brand will be unsafe on any network. The Designed-In Data Trade of the Networked American Automobile
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Or even easier: ignore it. People are exposed to so many advertisements now (like we are exposed to germs) that I would expect most of us are simply immune to them.
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I prefer wire cutters myself....
This feature will be a non-starter for me (Score:5, Insightful)
One aspect people fail to consider is that if your car reports your location to advertisers, it also can be compelled to report your location to law enforcement, creditors, lawyers.
Re:This feature will be a non-starter for me (Score:4, Insightful)
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In US Magnuson-Moss [wikipedia.org] would limit warranty-voiding to modified features.
Re:This feature will be a non-starter for me (Score:4, Interesting)
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Implying that data needing to be sent for preventative maintenance is "reasonable".
It's not. This won't make it through the courts, even in the USA or the UK.
Good luck (Score:5, Informative)
I will avoid buying cars equipped with one, if all cars go this way I will pull the fuse on infotaiment system.
Which in all likelihood will result in a car that does not start. I work with these sorts of system in my day job because my company provides wiring for them. These are (generally speaking) not well designed modular systems that can be easily disabled piecemeal. Car companies have virtually zero concept of modularity or security and all the systems tend to be tied into all the others WAY too closely. CAN bus [wikipedia.org] is a hot mess. The way wiring is done in most vehicles would make the head of most slashdot readers explode with rage. It's the most scatterbrained ad-hoc thing you can imagine.
We just did a set of harnesses for a vehicle being prototyped right now and the notion that you could disable the infotainment system on that vehicle with no further problems is laughable. You'd basically have to reprogram the whole thing and possibly replace a lot of the ECUs [wikipedia.org] which for all practical purposes would be nigh impossible.
One aspect people fail to consider is that if your car reports your location to advertisers, it also can be compelled to report your location to law enforcement, creditors, lawyers.
Yep. Scary ain't it?
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Two words: chip tuners
If there's anything on my car(s) I don't want, my guess is my local to me chip tuner will have a way around it.
I usually drive my cars till the wheels fall off anyway, so that removes the "what if you sell it" argument.
Reality (Score:5, Insightful)
you provide wiring, you do not actually see the work being done witin the modules.
Sigh.... Actually I do see quite a lot of it because we don't just do the wiring but thank's for the insult. We also do a lot of engineering for the ECUs and for several of our customers we provide program management for the entire electrical system of a vehicle. But you go ahead with being condescending to someone you know nothing about.
So your opinions on the wiring hold weight but I can tell that you have no idea how the modules actually send packets and interact on the network
Since I've told you virtually nothing beyond the fact that my company makes wiring products that's quite a leap you made there. Maybe you should find out what I actually do before telling me what I know?
Anyways, your defeatist attitude is mostlikely because you do not understand how canbus actually works on the protocol layer as yopu are only exposed to the physical wiring layer. I can tell you that removing and/or reprogramming modules from a car is not impossible and is already done.
Defeatist? Not at all. Just realist. I know exactly what is involved, how hard it is, and how expensive because I'd done it. If you think it is trivial you either lack perspective or you are utterly clueless because you've never really done it. I also know how ad hoc much of the programming that goes into a lot of it is because I work directly with the engineers doing it.
I am already replacing certain modules in high end cars and replacing them with small SOC's that talk on the canbus, it is not impossible it just takes time and effort.
It is impossible for most people. Yes you can reprogram all this stuff. Doing so is expensive, time consuming and requires specific technical expertise. You aren't going to get a CANbus for Dummies book from Amazon and start reprogramming ECUs over a weekend. You can hire people to do it for you but they don't come cheap.
You may work for an automotive supplier, but that doesn't mean that you understand automotive engineering.
Really? Glad you set me straight. I thought the fact that I AM automotive engineer with over 20 years in the industry might have given me some insight but clearly an AC on slashdot knows all.
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This in car advertising feature will be non-starer for me. I will avoid buying cars equipped with one, if all cars go this way I will pull the fuse on infotaiment system. One aspect people fail to consider is that if your car reports your location to advertisers, it also can be compelled to report your location to law enforcement, creditors, lawyers.
I'm sure you could probably pay a several thousand dollar premium for the "add free" model. Really, it's most likely that this kind of thing would, at least initially, be used on lower end cars to subsidize the price. Higher end cars like Tesla, BMW, Mercedes, etc won't install this as it would tarnish their brand image. But looking for a cheap little 4 cylinder commuter car? Be ready for ads.
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I have a feeling it would be more like reducing the horsepower of the vehicle, or forcing a delay at startup until someone watches and interacts with "x" number of ads.
Bad example (Score:5, Insightful)
THe time for the pizza coupon is 15-20 minutes out from the pizza shop so you can order on your cell/smart phone and then pick it up rather than pulling over, ordering, and then sitting and waiting for the pizza.
Altho personally I find all this advertising abhorrent and am sick to death of constanly being advertised to. I tend to take the more annoying ads as as example of who NOT to do business with.
Everything (Score:4, Informative)
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The users then remember the brands who tried to track and push ads onto them.
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The cost of executing an instruction is exponentially going to zero.
Oh, hell no! (Score:5, Insightful)
Screens are invevitable (Score:3)
Can we please just keep making cars that have NO built-in screens?
Short answer? Probably not. Not in the long run anyway. The cost savings from doing as much as possible with a touch screen are probably going to overwhelm any other options not required by law. This despite the fact that touch screens are a terrible interface for many things.
If and when I need a navigator, I'll mount my phone, but I generally don't need a bright glowing rectangle blowing out my night vision.
Since that doesn't really happen I'm not sure what your complaint there is. I can turn the screen off in my truck if I want to but even when it is on it isn't all that bright unless I want it to be.
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Can we please just keep making cars that have NO built-in screens? If and when I need a navigator, I'll mount my phone, but I generally don't need a bright glowing rectangle blowing out my night vision.
Just got a new one last year ... no screen.
If there's a market, they should stay available. Keep buying them that way. Keep telling the dealers and anyone who will listen why you have that preference.
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Acuras since 2014 have a separate dimming setting for the screen than the rest of the console. This lets me make it significantly dimmer than the rest of the console.
Though, I miss the color change of my RSX. In the day it light up white to be seen, at night it lit up red so it doesn't fuck up night vision. Newer ones do the same color but dim, and it isn't as pleasant.
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just keep making cars that have NO built-in screens
Keep making cars? I don't think you know what that phrase means. It typically implies that we are currently making cars without built in screens.
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just keep making cars that have NO built-in screens
Keep making cars? I don't think you know what that phrase means. It typically implies that we are currently making cars without built in screens.
We are; I bought one new last year without a screen.
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I don't want to live in the future any more (Score:5, Insightful)
This car of the future... (Score:3)
...I will not drive. Or at least not own. I'll take public transit, a taxi or some "ride-sharing" (stupid name) service, walk, or cycle. In cases that I really need to drive, I'll rent or use a car-sharing service, which will rather limit the amount of data that can be collected from me in that context.
Note to car manufacturers: sell me a car that drives from point A to point B efficiently. Make a profit doing that. If you can't, then gtfo.
The future was always about advertising (Score:2)
Seriously, what did you think were all those coloured lights in Blade Runner?
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When I was a kid it seemed like it had so much promise. Nowadays it's just pretty much advertising.
One the bright side, it seems like we are one step closer to Futurama. If we get spaceships and robots and an amusement park on the Moon, it might be worth putting up with the ads in your dreams or the suicide booths.
And don't forget hypnotoad! All glory to the hypnotoad!
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Maybe we need to raise the voting age back up to 21, eh?
We compelled states to raise the drinking age up to 21, why not rescind the voting age change not that long back and make it 21 again too?
If you use Google or Apple or Facebook... (Score:5, Insightful)
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My guess is even if you pay the Google privacy ransom, they will sell your info anyhow since they can claim they collected it through non-gmail means.
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I don't care (Score:2)
The car of the future will drive by itself while I'll have my AR-Goggles and my headphones on, so they can show whatever the fuck they want.
Waze (Score:3, Informative)
Waze has been doing this for some time, but only when I stop at red lights. As soon as I move the ad goes away.
I guess automakers would like a slice of the pie. I only wish they would be as self-constrained...
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Really? The one time it's safe for you to look at the map, get an idea of the road and any turnings ahead, so that you can focus on actually driving when moving, and they obscure it with a fucking ad?
This doesn't entice me to try it out.
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Waze is basically designed to facilitate distracted driving. by encouraging people to click on shit while driving. Showing ads is just an extension of this purpose.
Question - who owns the car? (Score:5, Interesting)
I see more and more of this coming up in the industry and it opens a question for me - who owns the car?
It may make a difference if the car is leased. But thinking about how Tesla batteries software limited capacity/range - if I buy the car with a giant battery in it cannot I not defeat that?
Or is it like Sat radio - where I have to have a subscription to continue using it? Is the "fuel" in my car available only through subscription? What prevents me from strapping a bigger battery to my roof and plugging it in through the charge-port (ala battery packs for cell phones).
So the car manufacture is going to install advertising software in my car? And may I defeat it or otherwise alter the vehicle as I see fit. And perform repairs on it too!!!
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I see more and more of this coming up in the industry and it opens a question for me - who owns the car?
It may make a difference if the car is leased. But thinking about how Tesla batteries software limited capacity/range - if I buy the car with a giant battery in it cannot I not defeat that?
Or is it like Sat radio - where I have to have a subscription to continue using it? Is the "fuel" in my car available only through subscription? What prevents me from strapping a bigger battery to my roof and plugging it in through the charge-port (ala battery packs for cell phones).
So the car manufacture is going to install advertising software in my car? And may I defeat it or otherwise alter the vehicle as I see fit. And perform repairs on it too!!!
Leases/rentals are probably different as you say. I think there's plenty of case law on the books saying you can do whatever the heck you want with your own car. I don't see the difference in adding an engine modification to a gas car or adding the battery pack you talk about. In the case of the artificial battery limiter I would liken it to the existing performance limiters built into gas cars today. They exist in the electronic control unit computer and are easy to change with some plug-in parts from a
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cannot I not defeat that?
I am honestly not sure.
If I ever buy this car (Score:2)
Here Comes Idiocracy (Score:2)
I will just keep driving my 20 year old car (Score:3)
284,000 miles and still going strong.
It will not be possible to just disable the display. Cars already come with a single display that integrates many functions like GPS, climate control, entertainment, maintenance. No way to just shut it off.
I knew there was a bright side (Score:2)
Malware on Wheels (Score:2)
Given sticker price of vehicles I can't imagine it taking all that much more than a few people walking off the lot in disgust before dealers demanded change.
No thanks (Score:4, Interesting)
This sort of crap is exactly why 1. I'm really glad that legislation like the GDPR in the EU [eugdpr.org] is coming along to begin to allow us to take control of our data. Might not be perfect but a good start. As I read it, this wouldn't be allowed without explicit consent between the owner of the car and whatever advertising company ran this (burying it in an EULA doesn't count)
but simultaneously I'm 2. really annoyed that my dipshit government and uninformed co-citizens voted to take my country out of the EU :-( at least we'll get a few years of the GDPR to see how that works out.
They Do Already (Score:4, Informative)
Fuck ads in cars (Score:2)
Fuck them fuck them and fuck them some more. That shit has no right to be there distracting and killing people. And the privacy issues are 10 times worse than browsing. Even the government might have enough sense to block this shit.
Ugh (Score:2)
In my lifetrim (Score:2)
I was born a free citizen.
Then I was a consumer.
Today, I'm a product. [1]
[1] And somehow, a bad guy now by default of my demographics. Perhaps that makes me a better product, or, more likely, it makes other products more valuable to the "store" selling them.
Re:In my LIFETIME, even. Sigh. (Score:2)
Fixed title.
Adblock all the time, everywhere (Score:2)
This is the level of ethics that advertisers have. Block them all the time, everywhere. They are absolute scum.
If a site fails to make ad revenue, it is not my problem, blame the scamming scum advertisers.
We even helped block them in real life in my city. A new zoning regulation bans all light up LED billboards.
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Just say NO to a data connection to your car at all.
Not worried yet... (Score:4, Interesting)
I've been an active Facebook user since 2010. I probably post 2 or 3 times per day. Facebook knows where I live, what I like, how old I am, who my friends are, what my politics are, what TV shows and movies I like, where I've travelled, what airlines I fly... On and on.
I don't run ad blockers.
Nevertheless, in eight years, other than the odd T-Shirt company, Facebook has never once served up an ad for something I'm interested in. Never. Once. They have no clue. All they do is serve up ads for things I've already searched elsewhere, like Timberland shoes or random nonsense they think a 50-year-old male might be interested in.
My Android phone knows everywhere I go. Again, nothing I'm interested in. Nothing.
Ditto Twitter.
I'm not going to stress about this until one day I truly have a Keanu "whoa" moment. And that hasn't happened yet...
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That Keanu moment was when I got ads for products on a device that had no known linkages (wife's ipad with only her account on it) to the one I had actually had done a search from. The ability to track me for ad purposes is amazingly aggressive and persistent. I find that creepy as hell.
How would you feel if a clerk at the local supermarket randomly walked up and addressed you by your full name and asked if they could help you find an oddly specific and correct product? I'd probably grab tin foil and run
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If you use Facebook on mobile (not the app, just the website), you will get advertisements on pretty much any product you have viewed on Amazon or done a google search for.
Though, they must not get info on what I have purchased, because most of the ads are for things I already bought.
No idea if it does this on a computer browser, though, for obvious reasons.
NO THANK YOU (Score:2)
Cut the antennas, turn it all off (Score:2)
o Radio
o Climate control
o Maybe electric door locks and electric windows
o Intermittent wipers
o Cruise control
o Preferably a light pickup truck, with a stick-shift
That's all I need in a vehicle. It's transportation, not a lifestyle choice.
Maybe if more people stopped thinking of it as a lifestyle choice and more like transportation, paid attention to the road and being a decent driver, we wouldn't have many of the problems w
You've won a brand new car! (Score:2)
Free! Just sign this agreement allowing all your information to be harvested and sold.
Uh... Yeah... (Score:2)
Re:Telenav is betting you won't mind much (Score:5, Interesting)
Telenav is betting you won't mind much
I'll take that bet.
Me too. Especially after insurance companies realize they can compel release of this data to dispute coverage or increase rates.
For example: You go through drive-through every morning - you must be eating breakfast while driving to work. This leads to distracted driving. Congratulations! You win 20% higher premium.
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I'm reminded of the OBD devices some insurance companies offer so you have a discount. I tried that, but because I commute on a busy highway (I-35 in Austin), coupled with cretins who swing in a lane, freak out because traffic is stopped, then slam the brakes on, forcing me to do 60-0s fast, no matter how much following distance I leave that gets logged... My premiums went up by 25%, so I switched insurance companies.
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Me too. Especially after insurance companies realize they can compel release of this data to dispute coverage or increase rates.
For example: You go through drive-through every morning - you must be eating breakfast while driving to work. This leads to distracted driving. Congratulations! You win 20% higher premium.
Even better: "Congratulations! You bought a car with a built-in distraction device! You win a 20% higher premium!"
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Congratulations! You win 20% higher premium.
This is a small overshoot in a good trend. The higher premium may make you to skip the breakfast in paper wrapper in the drive through in the morning. Your insurance rate will go down. You'll also be healthier. Your health insurance rate will go down.
Seriously what world do we live in where people eat in their cars.
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you must be eating breakfast while driving
False assumption. Could be buying food to eat at work, could be buying a drink, could be flirting with the staff, could get lost on the way to work every day and pull in for directions, could be a Russian spy attending a dead-drop to exchange messages with the FBI.
Luckily insurance companies have intelligent people working for them and wont be that bloody silly. To go with your assumption, I mean.
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Not. If your car insurance company says you have to have tracking turned on or they will not take your business. There is nothing illegal about that.
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And I'm betting there will be class-action lawsuits if this really does happen. In what possible way does buying a car grant a third part the right to collect and sell any data gathered from it? Ignoring the privacy implications - the data is not theirs to take! I genuinely don't understand the mentality behind these sociopathic advertising asshats which makes them think they have any sort of right to do something like this.
If they want to install this bullshit in the car then they had better give owner
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Telenav is betting you won't mind much
I'll take that bet.
No kidding. I will never buy a car that serves me ads. I'd debate driving one even for free. Any manufacturer that ops into this will lose me as a customer, too, even if the car I wanted didn't have the ads (yet).)
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Just include the GPS track from the occasional crash.
"You're telling me the GPS shows my car and I both scattered across Talledega, yet I haven't made a claim, you think the car is still insurable and you think I'm alive to pay the premium. You clearly don't believe that GPS track yourself!"