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Onstar Navigation System to Deliver In-Car Spam
pneuma_66 writes: "According to the New York Times (Free reg, don't cha know) navigation systems, like OnStar, are planning to deliver ads based on the car's location. For example, the system will 'notify' the driver of sales in nearby stores. The vp of OnStar says "The privacy and the confidentiality of our subscribers are of the utmost importance", well lets see how the big companies play with this new wealth of information."
Well, apparently now you cant run to your car to hide from all that spam you get from the USPS and your email and your AOL email.. They've now got you! you go camping with your car, you're still going to get spammed.. seems to me that they've got every corner of the earth to be now non-spam-free.. unless you do go hiking into the wilderness.. but heck.. maybe they've got some trees hooked up to the net so you'll be spammed in the wilderness now too!
Isnt there any end to this spamfest?
Moderation Totals: Funny=+1 Insightful=+1 SpamComplaint=-1
Online spam in the car? Ouch
I'd have a personalized plate on my car, but "toxic bachelor" won't fit into 7 letters.
So when the bicyclist sues you, and you in turn pin it on OnStar, that's when this shit will be nipped in the bud.
Its only happening when you use their 'virtual advisor' service. Yeah, you pay for it. but its not going to be interrupting your service use. If you dont like it, dont buy it. duh!
-- dieman - Scott Dier
... seriously. Will that work? Oftentimes there will only be one person in the car and hence he/she wont be able to look down to see the ad. Besides, with the way people drive these days, wno one will have time to stop for a sale anyway.
Now something more realistic (if it isnt there already) would be having the system allow a user to query information about nearby hotels, malls, restaurants, etc.
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
I read something in Analog SF recently that involved a household robot that you could get for free, in exchange for having it spout ads all the time. ("You are out of window cleaning fluid. I suggest you buy Windex! Streak free cleaning bla bla bla...") Maybe if they gave you the OnStar service free, or at a reduced rate, the incar ads wouldn't be so bad... but even then, this is kind of a bad idea.
We'll see how the market likes this.
Username taken, please choose another one.
I bet they're going to try the same tired line of "Well, in this dynamic market, we need to experiment with sources of revenue..blabla..."
:-)
They're *already* charging people something like $399/yr, in addition to the stuff being installed on your vehicle,and NOW they're going to try throwing ADVERTISEMENTS at you?
Screw *that* - I'll just drive around with my happy Garmin eTrex GPS unit. At least it doesn't feel the need to inform me of a sale at Macy's.
On the flip side, Onstar really CAN find most anything. Our crazy friend Bill called Onstar and asked "Where's the nearest tittie bar?" and we had the answer within seconds. Gotta love that kind of service.
This might not be all bad... take an example scenario for instance:
1. VA Linux, err... Systems... err, whatever they are nowaways sells all customer information on every
2. Geeks everywhere are suddenly constantly notified (in that pleasant feminine voice) of valuable chances to spend their money:
- "There is a strip club off to your left. Those women like geeks."
- "Adult video store just around the corner!"
- "That iMac girl is real, and she's giving out table dances at the Fun Club downtown at eight o'clock!"
- "Your boss just installed Windows XP across the company network. Your BSD server is gone. Wouldn't you like to purchase a firearm at Ed's Discount Sawn-offs tonight?"
The possibilities are limitless.OPT-IN MARKETING!!!! I never thought I'd see the day merketers ask me if I want to see ads. Read the article and you shall see - the spamming requires you to sign up. Of course one already pays soemthing like 400/year for it, so i dont know how many people will jump for joy over this. Maybe if they cut the fee for signing up they'll get some people who will live with ads.
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
Drive by Harvard University... Get your PhD degree!
Drive by the bank... Make $$$ Fast!
Drive by the swimming pool... Get wet pussy now!
Thanks to OnStar and AOL, my daily commute is finally going to become fun again!
Ceci n'est pas une sig
I don't mean the technical differences, but the fact that you are getting advertisements you didn't request. I suppose the next step will be to create the "Onstar Silver" system, where you can configure the type of ads you want to get, "Onstar Gold", where you can make queries about the nearest restaurants, etc, and the "Onstar Platinum" where you are given the choice of not receiving any ads.
Yeah, but here's the real question.
Supposing OnStar can track where your car is, can't it also track acceleration and velocity and all that? I mean, supposing there's a sale at a Bob's Stores. It flashes the Ad.
Now, supposing you slow down and turn into the Bob's Stores parking lot. OnStar, technically, could save this information as specific to your vehicle. An entry in their big database that says "Customer 84392 will respond to advertising in this catagory."
What it all seems like is one big cyber-snoop service, tracking where you really are and advertising towards your patterns. A waste of car battery just like the new limewire ads are a waste of processing power.
Now, OnStar could say they won't do this, but you know it'll happen. It's a perfect advertising scheme. They'd know exactly what kind of driver and shopper you were dependant on what stores and advertisements you listened to and responded to.
Ieshan
Predictor at Large
Lost again! Drat!
Oh please OnStar gods help me!
"Hello, OnStar BOFH here"
Yeah, I'm lost, I'm trying to find 1234 Bovine...
"No Problem Sir..."
""
"Up on your right there is a WalMart, do you see it?"
Uh, yeah, sure... but what...
"Pull into the parking lot so I might give you some indepth instructional proceedures."
OK...
"WalMart is having a special on Remington Pump Shotguns, they normally retail for..."
Wait, I need to get to...
"Sure, proceed north for 3 miles and I'll alert you when you reach THAT destination."
"On your right is a StarBucks giving a special discount to OnStar Customers!"
I really really need to get to 1234 bovine...
There is a really important meeting that I must attend, if I don't make it, it could mean the end of my career and all dreams!
"Oh that sounds important..."
""
""
Um, sir, this looks like the same walmart I was at an hour ago. My god, the meeting is over... I'm ruined! What is your problem!
"You've reached WalMart, home of the Wally arsenal collection! Your profile suggests this would be perfect"
AAAAARGG!
How much were those shotguns?
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
Think first, then post, it'll make you seem a lot smarter.
Well, for security reasons, the pop-ups shouldn't block you vision. But what if they are coded to parts where you can't see the road? Instead of seeing the hood, you could see ads. And in rainy weather, pop-ups following the wipers would be the most effective way to focus the customer's attention.
.
K.I.T. Michael, there's a 40% discount sale at the "Spank Your Pants" Adult Bookstore in that strip mall to the right.
M. Knight Excellent Kit! Go to "pursuit" mode.
Someone you trust is one of us.
hmm, now there's an interesting thought. maybe keep it to the passenger side of the car would also work.
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
Wahoo! I don't have enough spam as it is. Think about this. You wake up in the morning, take a shower, check email before you head to work and are instantly bombarded with spam. %90 of the messages you received are spam and are mostly for disgusting porn sites. You then go to your car hear nothing but ads on the radio, your On-star then goes off every 30 seconds with annoying ads as you drive near a mall or downtown district. For me, living in New York city, I bet it will probably go off every 10 seconds where I am constantly surrounded by stores! Then you get to work and guess what? Then you get even more spam. Your corporate email will be loaded with spam and your co-workers with beepers will receive spam! Imagine being at work when your beeper goes off displaying spam and you or your employer has to pay $.15 for each spam ad you receive! I just can't take it anymore! This is becoming a sad reality. I hear the old Monty Python song spam going off in my head right now as I type this.
...oops I mean verbal spam that you can not shut off its, its 100 times as worse. Thats right. You can't turn On-star off! It will just go on and on to your ears go deaf or you go nuts! If On-star ever does this they will commit corporate. No one would possible want a constant spam machine in there cars. I do not like distractions when I am driving. Especially ones that are verbal. All I have to say is that I am sorry for On-star owners who are reading this right now.
If I had one of these things in my car, I would probably rip it out with my own bare hands! How intrusive can you get! With email you can just ignore it or click on it and delete it. But with verbal harassment's
I remember not too long ago that you can have your access to the internet could be terminated for spamming. You could be flamed or kicked out of a newsgroup for spamming only a single spam ad. Seriously. Spamming was very bad. Just ask any old timer. The internet and especially the newsgroups section of it were created for schools and institutions to share and exchange ideas and to promote learning. Today its being banned from schools thanks to porn spams. I was on dejanews recently and I saw actual pedophile spam ads. If I had kids I definitely would not want them to log on to the newsgroups today. What a shame.
http://saveie6.com/
My first reaction was now they've gone and completely screwed up a good product. I was considering getting one of these but if they're going to bombard me with ads, forget it.
My second reaction, upon seeing it is opt-in, is who's stupid enough to sign up for this?
-- Will program for bandwidth
As I understand it, you can already contact Onstar and get this kind of information as it is now. It doesn't automatically notify you of course, but all you have to do is push a button and ask for directions to restaurants etc
Time for some tasty Shiner Bock!
All the in car nav systems I have seen/used always pop up a box warning the driver not to use the system while driving. I guess this allows the manufacturer to disclaim liability problems that might happen for accidents with claims like "I was looking at my nav system when I hit x..."
So on the one hand we are discouraged to use the device then driving around, and to only look it at to get directions, but now the device is going to be advertising junk - trying to get our attention?
Seems like a liable case waiting to happen, unless it only displays spam when the vehicle is detected to be stationary (which would make the spam low volume->not spam).
-- Mike
Why should I complain? Look at all the great stuff that would not exist if companies were not permitted to shove stuff down our throats all day. Highway billboards, McDonalds, top 40 music, alternative top 40 music, Hollywood, children's cereal that cost more per pound than steak, three large and valuable TV fanchises owned by GE, Westinghouse and Disney, artificial grape flavor, the list of quality additions to all our lives goes on and on. With databases they can target those of us who don't buy such shit for extermination. This is a great day and we are one step closer to thar really cool car, Kit pimp addition. Thank you OnStar for proving that there will be one less place to hide.
I can't wait for the new home emergency service with opt in adverts. Just imagine your $400/year burgalar alarm shouting things at you. I'm over awed. I can't wait for it's integration into the Homaland Security sytem so the Federal Government can make sure I'm safe too. This is all so cool. Gadget future, just like predicted in 1984.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
How long before procmail gets ported to OnStar? Hey, Linux has been ported to everything under the sun; why not procmail?
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
Judging on the areas I have to drive through to get to work, I'll be receiving lots and lots of ads for where I can buy the purest heroin and the cheapest automatic weapons...
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
If you want to buy an LT model truck or sport ute (LT = heated, pleather, power seats in addition to all other options on truck), you have to get OnStar. There is no way for me to purchase the GM vehicle I want without buying onstar, and then having the burden of removing it and ordering a panel for the next trim level down to fill the hole.
You can turn your radio off.
This isn't really that big of a deal, just play a soft but distinctive seris of tones before the ad starts playing, so the user knows what's coming. I do the same thing with my text-to-speech television show reminder, and I don't have a problem unless the music is turned up so loud that I miss the intro tones.
Will the price of OnStar be lower because of this? Or will this end up being another thing like cable, where you pay an enourmous amount of money for something that used to be done for free to the enduser, but now you pay AND get commercials.
Many car radios in germany have a feature that recognizes when there is traffic information on a (user-) selected station, and automatically turn the volume up and switch to that station (if you listen to a different one or tape or CD). When the info is over, things go back to what they were before. Some background info
So if a driver doesn't know his radio better than his nav system (actually even then), he could be quite irritatet by both. It certainly anoyed me a couple of times, when the radio began yelling traffic info at me.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Actually, it would make a wonderful scene for a subplot in a movie. Yes I can see it - someone wins a year in a house from the future - the Microsoft house that wakes you up everytime you get spam. And the final escape to the car where it decides to use the "follow you everywhere" feature for email and messages. complete with the tech support who insist that this is a feature and all the rest.
Someone should be able to hone some sort of open source movie script to fine effect.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Dont buy Onstar. Buy an aftermarket Nav system that isn't going to rob you blind monthly and then for the quarterly navigation disc updates. (Nothing like a forced upgrade.. your navdisks are too old, please replace them with a newer version...)
:-)
There are several Car computing/navigation systems out there. Hell if you want one that is cheap but the first one out there buy an autopc off of ebay. (Dont pay any more than $600.00 for a new one with gps and nav... I've seen them at the "super deals that cost $5.00 to get in" around here for $550.00 with software.)
The biggest problem with most of these navigation systems is that they use the really crappy maps from navtech corperation.. They make the worst map database on the planet... if the city is below 1,000,000 in population it isn't on the disc. and errors will stay there for years before they fix them.
The best nav-system I saw was a Q-pc car computing platform running linux and then running delorme with wine... it rocked, and the 4 year old disc database was perfectly useable if you were interested in addresses or routes...
only problem is that the Q-pc with display is about $3000.00.... ICK... anyone have a nice 4.5 inch 800X600 TFT lcd that can withstand -60degF and has touchscreen? I'll design the vehicle mounted computer.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Bet they're thinking of offering two levels of service: A more costly ad-free one and a less expensive spam saturated one.
You're using her as bait, Master!
In other news tonight, over 75% of OnStar subscribers are considdering canceling the service, or maybe just driving into the store window "to your left that has a great sale on plus size jeanes."
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
...this just confirms that "a map" may be the best navigation system out there, if only because it's quiet.
And "a book" may be the best way to read a book, because you can carry it with you and read it wherever, even without violating the law.
What I'm afraid of is the day where you can't get 99% of the books in paper, and where cars come with always-on navigation and "security monitoring" systems which blare ads at you without your ability to stop it.
I'm not afraid of technology. I'm afraid of the dunderheads we have running our world, and what they will do with technology (or anything else).
-Rob
Wait until they figure out how to take control of your car and make you stop at a location. At that point they'd make you get out, lock the doors for 15 minutes, and not let you back in until you show the in-car camera your receipt.
Does a GPS tell you which roads are one way only, or where the next highway interchange is?
Some do.
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
Well, you know what I'm gonna do, right? If I ever get a car with On Star, that thing is coming off. Even before the smog stuff.
Let me preface I'm a Chevrolet mechanic.
First Onstar uses the car's speakers. It stops the radio feed then the Onstar operator can speak to you through them. I don't think GM will brake into the radio signal just to send an add, sense this will only piss off paying customers. You have to pay for Onstar. The first year is free but after that it's a subscription.
Now how it works. It has 3 parts a GPS sender, a cell phone receiver, and a control module. The GPS sensor records the car's position. The control module calls the Onstar center every 10 minutes if memory serves. It will also send messages such as the air bag has gone off and the operator can call you assuming you still have power. There are also blue Onstar and red emergency buttons you can press to initiate a call.
Now there is a lot of Big Brother things that can be done with this system but I don?t think Spam is one that GM would stoop to. However I wouldn?t do anything illegal in an Onstar equipped vehicle.
No, OnStar is NOT going to deliver in-car spam. If you read the article, you'd read that 'OnStar, by far the biggest service with 1.5 million users, says it makes note of a car's location only in an emergency or when a driver makes contact with the service.' 'OnStar seems more interested in advertising that is tied to content.' The title of this story is blatantly incorrect, and the write-up is very misleading.
Onstar is considering putting ads that are related to their content, such as ads for a brokerage if you're getting stock quotes. That's pretty far from 'in-car spam' based on tracking your location.
The only thing in the article that resembles this is the 'gas station locator' by Wingcast, a service which hasn't even been launched yet. It would notify you when your car runs low on gas, and give you directions to gas stations. It's a useful feature, and I'm sure you'll have to sign up for it before they send you gas station ads.
Personally I'd object to ads mixed in with a service that I paid good money for, even if they're not based on your location. For a few hundred dollars a year, I expect a service that's free of annoyances. A gas station locator isn't an annoyance, it's a feature.
In the ad world this is known as pushing. The concept is to put ads where you never got them before. Cell phone, pager, and car when the radio is off, etc. They want you to see ads in church, on the beach, in the shower, and NASA is working on allowing commercial sponsorship of space missions. Can you see the Pepsi logo on the side of a rocket? I can.
It will get much worse. You know that networked refrigerator they keep telling us is going to come? It too will have ads.
Free software has ads. Spending on advertising is going down as people become trained to ignore them. Just 10 years ago there where 2 less minutes of commercials per 30 minutes of programming. You now see 6 times the number of ads you did 10 years ago (sorry can't think of the source).
Ads are getting more intrusive by the day. Remember when you would get your receipt and it would have coupons on the back? Those are too easy to tune out. Now you get a separate piece of paper with coupons on it.
You used to buy something and it would come with a free gift. That free gift has turned into a discount somewhere else. More advertising.
When will this change? It won't. What can you do to avoid all of this? Nothing. Well nothing unless you live like I do, which is not recommended.
o Text based browser.
o No pager
o No cell phone
o TV is not plugged in
o no VCR
o no DVD
o Listen to NPR, the ads here are even getting an out of hand for "commercial free programming"
o don't own a car
You see fewer ads on the bus because you can bury your head in a book and not have you eyes locked on the road where all those billboards, A-frame signs, and faux-hot-air balloons are.
o Don't shop at the big stores. Hit the thrift stores and antique stores.
o Eat at mom and pop places and not places with BigThemePark adverts on the tray liners, YBotherBox adds on the drinks and movie tie ins on the to go bags.
o and the list goes on.
To explain, no there is too much, let me sum up: This should come as no surprise.
Ascii artist &
TellMe also offers movie tickets via Fandango, which in my experience has something go wrong in almost every transaction. (Today: six minutes of voice interaction and credit card entry leads to "an unexpected error occured, transferring you to customer service... wait time at least ten minutes...").
I think the challenge of the post-Internet era is to re-implement the better ideas so that they don't suck.
Actually mine does... I know which roads are one way, where round abouts are, which side streets to avoid, etc. And if there is a traffic jam coming up I can punch in the distance and it will automatically reroute me to next best route.
Because of this GPS system I absolutely refuse to buy another car without it.
What I even love about my GPS is when I get lost (did not turn off when I should have) my GPS will automatically reroute me and figure out when I will arrive there. The ETA is really cool because it tells me on a long haul when I will arrive...
Ok I could go on for hours, but the few thousand Euros are worth every penny...
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
If no option is provided, it should be a trivial hack to add a toggle switch to turn the speaker on and off, since the only time the user would want the speaker on is immediately after pressing the OnStar button to get assistance.