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The Car of the Future Will Sell Your Data (bloomberg.com)
Picture this: You're driving home from work, contemplating what to make for dinner, and as you idle at a red light near your neighborhood pizzeria, an ad offering $5 off a pepperoni pie pops up on your dashboard screen. Are you annoyed that your car's trying to sell you something, or pleasantly persuaded? From a report: Telenav, a company developing in-car advertising software, is betting you won't mind much. Car companies -- looking to earn some extra money -- hope so, too. Automakers have been installing wireless connections in vehicles and collecting data for decades. But the sheer volume of software and sensors in new vehicles, combined with artificial intelligence that can sift through data at ever-quickening speeds, means new services and revenue streams are quickly emerging. The big question for automakers now is whether they can profit off all the driver data they're capable of collecting without alienating consumers or risking backlash from Washington. "Carmakers recognize they're fighting a war over customer data," said Roger Lanctot, who works with automakers on data monetization as a consultant for Strategy Analytics. "Your driving behavior, location, has monetary value, not unlike your search activity."
This in car advertising feature will be non-starer for me. I will avoid buying cars equipped with one, if all cars go this way I will pull the fuse on infotaiment system.
One aspect people fail to consider is that if your car reports your location to advertisers, it also can be compelled to report your location to law enforcement, creditors, lawyers.
THe time for the pizza coupon is 15-20 minutes out from the pizza shop so you can order on your cell/smart phone and then pick it up rather than pulling over, ordering, and then sitting and waiting for the pizza.
Altho personally I find all this advertising abhorrent and am sick to death of constanly being advertised to. I tend to take the more annoying ads as as example of who NOT to do business with.
Can we please just keep making cars that have NO built-in screens? If and when I need a navigator, I'll mount my phone, but I generally don't need a bright glowing rectangle blowing out my night vision.
... grumble, grumble, grumble, mutter, mutter, Millenium... Hand... Shrimp, I tol' 'em, I tol' 'em.
When I was a kid it seemed like it had so much promise. Nowadays it's just pretty much advertising.
If you're using a Google or an Apple product, you are already giving away all of your data anyway. Gmail users give it away to save $2/month on real email. Apple users give it away for shiny shiny marketing. Facebook users give it away for god knows what. 99.99% of all people, at least in the US, have already voluntarily given one of these three big companies all of their information, anyway. It's all over. People are too fucking stupid and/or lazy.
I don't respond to AC's.
I'm reminded of the OBD devices some insurance companies offer so you have a discount. I tried that, but because I commute on a busy highway (I-35 in Austin), coupled with cretins who swing in a lane, freak out because traffic is stopped, then slam the brakes on, forcing me to do 60-0s fast, no matter how much following distance I leave that gets logged... My premiums went up by 25%, so I switched insurance companies.
But, that really can't work, can it?
I mean, there are times and places that you will lose signal, like in a tunnel, or perhaps parts of the country where there isn't great cell coverage, etc....
I would think they would have to take those use cases into account, and if they do..then you just block the signal perpetually...?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I don't even want my smartphone cloud-enabled. If it dies and loses its data, it's my fault for not backing it up. I'd rather know it's me in charge of my devices than some faceless corporation
If you gave me a choice between a printer and a giraffe with explosive diarrhoea, i'll get my ladder and my raincoat
you provide wiring, you do not actually see the work being done witin the modules.
Sigh.... Actually I do see quite a lot of it because we don't just do the wiring but thank's for the insult. We also do a lot of engineering for the ECUs and for several of our customers we provide program management for the entire electrical system of a vehicle. But you go ahead with being condescending to someone you know nothing about.
So your opinions on the wiring hold weight but I can tell that you have no idea how the modules actually send packets and interact on the network
Since I've told you virtually nothing beyond the fact that my company makes wiring products that's quite a leap you made there. Maybe you should find out what I actually do before telling me what I know?
Anyways, your defeatist attitude is mostlikely because you do not understand how canbus actually works on the protocol layer as yopu are only exposed to the physical wiring layer. I can tell you that removing and/or reprogramming modules from a car is not impossible and is already done.
Defeatist? Not at all. Just realist. I know exactly what is involved, how hard it is, and how expensive because I'd done it. If you think it is trivial you either lack perspective or you are utterly clueless because you've never really done it. I also know how ad hoc much of the programming that goes into a lot of it is because I work directly with the engineers doing it.
I am already replacing certain modules in high end cars and replacing them with small SOC's that talk on the canbus, it is not impossible it just takes time and effort.
It is impossible for most people. Yes you can reprogram all this stuff. Doing so is expensive, time consuming and requires specific technical expertise. You aren't going to get a CANbus for Dummies book from Amazon and start reprogramming ECUs over a weekend. You can hire people to do it for you but they don't come cheap.
You may work for an automotive supplier, but that doesn't mean that you understand automotive engineering.
Really? Glad you set me straight. I thought the fact that I AM automotive engineer with over 20 years in the industry might have given me some insight but clearly an AC on slashdot knows all.
> Is there any way for the car owner to disable these systems from "phoning home"??
It is easy: don't buy the car.