This was on reddit a week or so ago. I thought the top comment on the article there explained it reasonably, so I'm just going to quote it here:<p>"Here's the situation:<p>-TomTom, when you first set your GPS up, asks you if you want anonymous time/location travel data to be sent to TomTom. You can say no if you want. This has been going on for years.<p>-TomTom sends this anonymous data to authorities and governments with the idea that it will help them know where to build new/better roads etc. This has been going on for years.<p>-TomTom finds out that Dutch police are using this data to set up speed traps. TomTom, as a courtesy, lets everyone know what the Dutch police are doing, while they decide what to do about it.<p>And somehow the headline we get paints TomTom as evil jerks for this? They are the ones who let you know about what Dutch police are doing. This is a press release that they issued. They are warning you."
Was this data only sold to Dutch police or to US police departments as well? The article is not very clear on this, but mentions Dutch police specifically. Regardless, California drivers beware, police have been really cracking down hard on speeding since last month.
We read about this last week did we not?<p><a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2491729" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2491729</a><p><a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2490690" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2490690</a><p><a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2497611" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2497611</a><p><a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2494170" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2494170</a><p>Etc.