The pernicious argument of adtech shills has been (for long time) that the pilfering of personal user data is the only way to support the web, news, social media etc. because... people will simply not pay for these services - hence they opt to become the product.<p>Enter the mutation of the car into a "digital platform" and the expansion of the data heist in a market and product where - last I checked - no car was ever given for free.<p>Lets face it. User data collection and monetisation is not a necessity, has never been. Its an opportunistic choice and a moral attitude that exploited dysfunctional legal and regulatory systems and an ignorant and aloof public.<p>Maybe that regression is indeed a new "normal". The issue is that normalizing those business models in one domain invariably expands and leaks them in all domains.<p>If personal data exploitation is the new gold rush how can you argue that x, y, or z industries are not entitled to a serving?<p>Why should your bank, or your pharmacy or any random business you interact with via a digitised service or product not be able to monetise your behavior with third parties?<p>Moral decay and generational greed have opened a Pandora's box that will keep on giving.
People who build those systems at those companies could have an "Are we the baddies?" moment.<p>But they can find solace in that -- given maybe 99% of us on HN work at companies that sell out our users' privacy to other companies -- at least they're in good (or not-so-good) company.
This is an odd ranking for "worst types of data collected."<p>Personally, I'd be FAR FAR FAR more upset about my driving data being sent to insurance companies that I am about my voice recognition data being used to improve the voice recognition. But they seem to rank voice recognition training data and I suppose autopilot training data as the worst offenders.
I'd be careful assuming Subaru is clean or will stay that way. Toyota is on the naughty list and they have a significant ownership stake in Subaru.
How do brands handle the GPDR?<p>I haven't bought a car in 15 years so have no idea if original owner get to see a consent form or nag screen but:<p>- the fact a car is yours doesn't mean the person driving it is consenting as a car can be lent.<p>- manufacturers aren't notified of cars sales in the second hand market so aren't supposed to know if the owner change. How would the new owner be notified of the data collection?<p>This doesn't even only applies to cars sold in the EU as the GPDR applies to any good or service sold to an EU citizen, regardless of where is he living.<p>We might see some multi millions euros lawsuit in the future.
Is there some "radio delete" that is possible on newer cars, kind of like the "never plug the smart TV into the internet" to avoid tracking?<p>Or does this break other things, like the built-in GPS and similar?
I can only talk about Ford and Italy.
Here the owner of the vehicle must give explicit consent to collect and share data with third party. Ford italian branch is very strict about this, first hand experience. I know other european car makers processes are similar, but I have no first hand experience with them.
If these "smart" cars take off in the way that "smart" tv's have, I may have to stick to buying second hand "dumb" cars, just like I only buy second hand "dumb" tv's for privacy reasons.