Anyone that has owned a recent VW, knew this was true. I would get text messages from my local dealer anytime I was close to needing an oil change.
That’s so weird! Just like when my dentist calls me to an appointment when I’ve had a cavity for six years! Incredible! Just when I need to fill it!
Wouldn’t that just be a time based notification rather then dependent on any privacy invading metrics?
Not from my experience. I went from driving the car like 30000 miles a year to like 5000, the text messages were always about right on time for my services based on miles driven. Clearly the car was reporting to VW in some way routinely.
I would love to know how to disable telemetry on my own hard drive on wheels or at worst prevent it from phoning home. Mozilla did a great job bringing this issue to light but now we need actionable solutions that don’t rely on governments passing laws
Is it identifiable? Can it be attributed to individual car level?
I don’t imagine it would be difficult to figure out, especially if you know someone’s address.
Accidentally, lol. The point was to mine and sell the data, wasn’t it? Not exactly private.
The made public part is the accidental
“Accidentally” is the new “through incompetence”
Negligence. Volkwagen can afford competence, but chose not to invest in it.
Is there a company yet that let’s me pay them to internet disconnect and rip out sensors on a modern car?
After dieselgate and the discovery that VW was subjecting monkeys and humans to exhaust fumes in experimentation, their sales are still fine.
I honestly don’t think consumers give a shit about what negative things companies do.
I think they just don’t know. People are oversaturated and oversaturated and overloaded, and suffering for scraps, nobody has time, mental space or money to be choosy. Researching companies, suspiciously doesn’t show results. Finding that information isn’t easy, by design. It might be released, on the same day something else happens. But mostly people aren’t watching the news to the depth required to soak that stuff in, and don’t have the extra energy to soak anything in. Everything sent into our hands and eyes as news is controlled by a few with vested inrests. It would be lovely if there was a place that collected atrocities and kept them fresh. Who stopped buying nestle after all the horrible things they’ve done. I can bet you have supported a company with your dollar, that’s responsible for huge atrocities, it’s almost impossible to avoid. Look at the stuff happening in the Congo atm, all the top brands, committing atrocities for new phones to be built. How much have we heard about all of that? There’s so much. Where do you start. Funny story, I watched resident evil with my kid, just recently, and it was terrifying for whole new reasons. A top company who owns everything, goes into weapon manufacturing and creating advanced bio weapons, accidentally releases it, then doubles down continuously, shutting thousands in to die, and firing into crouds to cover up what it did. And that doesn’t seem far fetched, any more. All for the ever expansion of money, something that has a finite amount set. Literally the only way to achieve ever expansion is to commit atrocities, there’s a point where you take too much and the only option is atrocities to make more. And that’s capitalism, baby!!
That’s why there will be many more Luigi’s before anything improves.
It’s when they become loud mouth attention seekers like Musk that people begin to care. But if everyone claiming to boycott Musk products actually boycotted all the companies that have done terrible things (and way worse than musk), they’d suddenly have nothing to buy.
Let’s be 100% clear, all of these cars with “smart” features are collecting your data and selling it. Insurance companies are also buying this information and using it to raise premiums if they determine you a “bad driver.” Also this could reveal info such as where you live if anyone is determined enought depending on the info if stores (such as geolocation data).
Basically I’m saying wrap your car in tinfoil
Basically I’m saying wrap your car in tinfoil
and don’t ever let diagnostic tools with network access be connected to it. just as well could say never bring it to service, which is not really possible
I live in a small, rural community. The county sheriff’s department just announced how they bought the GPS tracking data for every vehicle in the county and how it’s going to “help calm traffic because they can predict where people are going to be speeding and can have an officer waiting”
The pre-crime department is starting and no one batted an eye.
USA?
Every time I hear something like this I’m glad I bought an old car without any connectivity.
My car is a 2012, I’ll be holding onto it until it falls apart.
Same, for now. Although, we have two ICE vehicles and want to swap to electric. I haven’t looked, but I can’t imagine there’s a great selection of electric, but ‘dumb’ in the US, considering GPS was mandatory for new vehicles in … 2016, I think?
I’ve also heard people say you can just pull the fuse for the GPS, but I’m still skeptical.
