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Lexus To Start Spamming Car Buyers In Their Cars
techmuse writes "Lexus has announced plans to send targeted messages to buyers of its cars based on the buyer's zip code and vehicle type. Unlike regular spam, these messages will be delivered directly to the buyer's vehicle, and will play to the vehicle's occupants as audio. Lexus has promised to make the messages relevant to the car buyers." Imagine the fun that some targeted malware could do — not that such a thing could happen to a Lexus.
Lexus has promised to make the messages relevant to the car buyers.
Genius. Because who is more likely to be ready to buy a new car than someone that just bought a brand new one.
Whale
Have these people lost their minds? I spend $60,000 for an automobile and now it will spam me while driving it? Are you serious, Lexus? What could possibly motivate these people to want to spam their customers AFTER a purchase? We are getting closer and closer to Idiocracy.
Toyota officials promise to be discerning and restrained.
"We're not going to barrage customers with marketing messages," vows Jon Bucci, vice president of Toyota's U.S. advanced technology unit.
Yeah... and cable television will always be uncensored and commercial free... and sattilite radio will always be uncensored and commercial free...
What's that you say? It might be like other software and have occasional security holes in it? I'm sure that won't be a problem.
How long before the first law suit claiming the ad is responsible for whatever driving calamity happened?
I can't believe this made it through a thought/mouth filter.
you can fix that - require that the car be stopped before delivering the message. If I were into lexus instead of boy racer cars, my first question for the sales guy would be which fuse to pull.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
Take your car back and ask for a refund. Even if you don't get it at least you will have made it very clear to the dealership that you are extremely unhappy and want to take back your business.
Also try to get in touch with someone fairly high up in Toyota's management / marketing at their corporate HQ and explain to them that you will never buy Toyota again and why. In the mean time keep complaining on the Internet and contact the local business / consumer watch-dogs (Better Business Bureau or whatever) and tell them that it was not made clear to you that your information would be used this way and that you are outraged.
It's a lot of work but this crap has to stop.
I'm self-employed and actually work as an advertiser (and I expect to wake up next to a dead horse tomorrow for admitting that here on /.) but I've never been tempted to think up ways to annoy users like this. In fact, I'm of the mind that making customers happy is the best road to success. I know. It's a pretty radical way to think. Give customers what they want, customers pay you and, *gasp*, come back!
I guess I'm old fashioned. I watch all of my colleagues come out with all of these flash ads and flash pop-ups etc. and I scratch my head wondering how these things catch on. I've had good success sticking to clean, simple, non-obtrusive ads and have never received a single complaint. Consequently my web-site user-base and my bottom line grow month after month (who'd'a thunk it!?). I will never understand why people think there is money in pissing people off.
Oh really now? Make sure to pass that policy onto the police, who always love to have their flashing red-and-blues on and as distracting as possible when they've pulled someone over or are responding to an accident.
I hear homeowners who get to be awakened by the flashing lights in the middle of the night, would be interested in such a change of policy too...
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
One critical difference: all those features are things (some) drivers want. If they cause an accident, you'll be probably be laughed out of court for filing suit against the makers of these "voluntary" distractions.
Toss the equivalent of spam at them, in a product they paid tens of thousands of dollars for, and people will be much less willing to hold back the lawsuits. The court will be far more sympathetic too.
To repeat a comment from another Lexus-related thread:
Whatever their other failings, I do not think you will see this type of thing from companies like BMW or Mercedes.
Read Pynchon.
They're trying to prevent people from hitting them. It kills a lot of people each year.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
You know...I"ve just never understood this 'critisizm' people try to heap onto people that buy nice luxury or high end sports cars. I mean, sure I guess in some remote cases it is true, but, I have to believe the majority of people do it because they WANT a nice luxury car, they WANT to drive a perrformance car (my category)...and they can afford said 'toys'. Sure a Yugo will get you from point A to point B....but, IMHO, it just won't make the trip as nice, or do it as fast as a good car.
I guess I've just always chalked it up to people that are jealous of people who have extra money to burn, and like the finer things in life. Not everyone feels the need to make everything in live 'utility'...or 'just get by'.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I'm guessing it is something like "OnStar"? I'd hope even if you for some reason GOT one of these units...you could opt out of said messages.
After hearing this...and hearing about how they can 'bug' your car with OnStar...and I'm sure can easily track you with these systems...why anyone would actually pay extra money for this type of crappy system?!?!
No thank you...leave this 'option' off for me please.
ON the other hand..think of the fun people will have when they can hack into this system..and send some really fun messages!!
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Not to mention that those strobe lights they usually have...really mess with other drivers that might be drunk or stoned...causing them to wreck, whereas they'd have made it easily without the distractions....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I can just imagine the scene in Toyota's boardroom.
Sir, all the other major car manufacturers are getting government assistance.
- Dammit, why aren't we getting some.
Because we aren't in as desparate a situation as they are.
- Hmmm, what can we do to get ourselves a piece of the government pie?
Well, we could try losing some customers by pissing them off. I suggest starting with the most demanding customers - the Lexus buyers.
- Excellent idea, we could try spamming them, that would be sure to work, everyone hates spam. Now lets award ourselves bonuses for coming up with this brilliant plan. We can cover it by telling the shareholders there'll be no dividends this year because of the financial situation.
Yeah, that's why. I drive a silly little car, but when I see a fancy car, I appreciate them. Making up a bunch of silliness about why they have one is just envy I think.
People spend their money on the things they like. When people from my job come to my apartment and see that everything is networked and computerized, they say "my god, how much more do you make than me???" But we all make the same (same contract), and that's just where my values are. They go on 2-month sojourns through the windswept mountains of Kafoonistan; I stream movies from the office to the TV. Mine is still way cheaper, and I enjoy it every day of the year.
But that's values. There's just no reason to criticize other people's "fun."
safety related like "it's icy today, please drive carefully", and notifications of recalls and messages alerting you to traffic conditions. And maybe the odd advert for a local garage to carry out a service when it's due.
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
The guy who just totalled his new car because he was distracted by adverts?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
In 1995 my wife and I moved to Europe. These days when we visit Canada or North America we are totally amazed at the Christmas tree ontop of cop cars. It makes NO SENSE...
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
As a rule, people don't mind richer people spending money on fine food and wine (or rare first editions, or whatever) because it's a private thing.
But going out on public roads in a ridiculously overpriced car (not talking about Lexuses here) is seen as just flaunting your wealth, and therefore vulgar.
So people respond with jokes about the car owners' tiny useless cocks, because in the UK at least we hate vulgarity.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Sorry, but as an engineer, I'm going to have to join the chorus of replies calling you a moron.
An engineer would never come up with an idea as brainless as this car spam idea, only a marketing droid or executive. In fact, engineers in today's large companies rarely come up with bright ideas (when they do, they don't bother to tell anyone, because they'll be rejected anyway). Engineers just do what they're told by executives and other bosses. There is a class of former engineers who have crossed over into the dark side of management who do come up with stupid ideas like this spam one, however, but they're not true engineers. In fact, people like that, while they may work for a while as an engineer, were never great engineers to begin with, and were always more interested in getting into management than doing anything technically great.