Technology

If you don't mind, please also highlight

health diagnosis data

genetic information

Because omfg, think about those for a second, and how any data that leaves your control is subject to eventual collection by law enforcement, legal or not, and anyone else willing to pay for it (or steal it):

For example, some bonehead rears your vehicle one day, but your health diagnosis data says you have a heart condition, or maybe just high blood pressure. These conditions can involve occasional lightheadedness, though you know yours is well controlled. You don't even think about it anymore because you take care of yourself and all your regular tests are good. But suddenly, you're in this minor accident, not even your fault, and it's no longer a simple rearending because some asshole has brought your health history into it so that YOU and not he will be on the hook for monetary damages.

(Triple if the bozo who hit you is some lame ass drunk rural county sheriff or elected official.)

And "genetic information" is code for DNA. How they would collect your DNA from your car I don't know, but do you REALLY want your genetic information associated with your vehicle and outside the confines of GINA* for the convenience of data sellers? I know I don't. (GINA is also the law that binds companies like 23andMe from selling your genetic data.) But the whole point of trying to legislate personal control over your own genetic information is because of all the dystopian scenarios that can easily evolve from others having it without your consent.

Yet now your car wants it too? Question this. Letting anyone have it by such means does a complete end run around any law meant to keep your personal genetic information private, and guts any rights you may have to your own privacy under the law, because you signed it away. Imagine the billions insurance companies could make, both health and auto, by refusing to pay for this or that because genetically it was a "pre-existing condition" or a "contributing factor" to you getting rearended by a drunk.

I've never been so thrilled to drive an ancient beater in my life.

*Note: GINA is weak already, but legislators are trying to weaken it further still: in 2018 a proposed change meant that "Employers would have been able to demand workers' genetic test results if the bill were to have been enacted."

At the very least.. cant the US implement one of the basic rules from GDPR?

In simple terms, what data can companies keep?

Data need to have: OK

Data nice to have: Not OK

How do they even capture this stuff? Are you expected to write some essays before you can buy the car?

They did that to me. I specifically gave them a card I knew was going to expire before the trial period was over and they got the new information anyway.

If I remember correctly, it's a "feature" the credit card companies have so your subscriptions don't lapse.

Credit cards have actually been doing that for years. It's a feature for recurring payments to reduce the amount of trouble users had when their CC number was compromised or it expired.

No kidding, it’s ridiculous to think they expect us to fork over $25k for cars that will invade our privacy. I have a 23 year old car I’ll drive till it’s dead before that ever happens.

I will drive my 2013 Honda Fit until the wheels fall off. I love it and with a $20 Bluetooth adapter, it has all the amenities I could need. I think it's insane that people are driving around with a tablet that controls their heat and radio.

Wasn't the next line that this agreement they all signed was just something they made up and don't actually follow and no one enforces?

They will be CaaS

We need cars that aren't giant IoT boxes that keep phoning home. The vast majority of "smart" car systems shouldn't need an Internet connection to function. But yes, I agree with your sentiment.

Never gonna happen unless governments force them.

What WILL happen is that more and more non-critical features will become pay to play. You'll rent the air conditioner in your car.

Installing your own software will become (or likely already is) illegal since if you're u do that you could play without pay on the car that you paid for with your money.

Corporations must be limited I'm what they can do, NOW. No more data monitoring and selling. No more ads pushed. No more pay to play. No more limiting what you can do with the products that you buy and own

US needs to regulate how data is collected by all companies. This shit is just gross.

This would be lovely, and I agree with you, but unfortunately the people scraping every inch of all of our data are the exact same people drafting legislation that they then turn over to their purchased politicians to submit with no edits.

Something needs to be done, but it can't be done in the system as is. We need a real overhaul, at least of electors if not the system itself, before anything is going to get better.

yeah idk why all electrical appliances need to be smart, didn't even want that in the first place

I mean, read the article and especially some of the individual reviews. GDPR is all over the place.

As a TL;DR cars made for the EU market score much better than US models, but the devil is in the details. If you've got some time at hand, it's a real eye-opener to go over their summary at the very least.

Best way to sell a browser and software services built on privacy is to do a lot of consumer reports emphasizing the value of privacy.

They keep it pretty narrow, their focus has always been very heavy in privacy. They don't report on anything else really, just the privacy aspect.