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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."
Telenav is betting you won't mind much
I'll take that bet.
Me too. Especially after insurance companies realize they can compel release of this data to dispute coverage or increase rates.
For example: You go through drive-through every morning - you must be eating breakfast while driving to work. This leads to distracted driving. Congratulations! You win 20% higher premium.
We have billboards by the road in the UK, lots of them.
However, a pop-up ad in the car is probably illegal. At least, the very first person with one of these cars to claim that the ad distracted them will quickly put and end to the practice.
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I see more and more of this coming up in the industry and it opens a question for me - who owns the car?
It may make a difference if the car is leased. But thinking about how Tesla batteries software limited capacity/range - if I buy the car with a giant battery in it cannot I not defeat that?
Or is it like Sat radio - where I have to have a subscription to continue using it? Is the "fuel" in my car available only through subscription? What prevents me from strapping a bigger battery to my roof and plugging it in through the charge-port (ala battery packs for cell phones).
So the car manufacture is going to install advertising software in my car? And may I defeat it or otherwise alter the vehicle as I see fit. And perform repairs on it too!!!
Yes, and it's typically pretty easy once you locate the module. The cellular radios are often socketed and easily removed, and barring that, there's a bunch of ways you could attack and disable the radio from effectively connecting to a tower (e.g. pinning the coax going to the antennae).
Of course once auto manufacturers catch on that people are circumventing their systems, they'll just label them as 'safety' related and lobby to the government to allow punishments for interfering with them.
1) This will be part of the "infotainment" system obviously. Have the system do a systems check and refuse to operate any of the display screen functions (radio, navigation etc) unless the system passes all checks.
2) The cell radio is also crucial to things like On-Star, so cooperate with the big insurance companies to make a disabled system more expensive to insure. On the basis that On-Star and automatic collision reporting are "vital safety systems"
3) Many cars now have a "limp home mode" where the vehicle will still operate, but with severely reduced performance. This is intended for things like emissions systems failures, engine computer failure and so on. It would be obvious and straight forward to have a car go into limp home mode if any of the many computers, logic controllers or other electronic parts fail the self check.
4) The easiest and most legally defensible, simply have the check engine or service engine light come on when the self check fails.
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