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Amazon Will Now Deliver Packages To the Trunk of Your Car (theverge.com)
Last year, Amazon unveiled a service called Amazon Key that lets delivery people into your home to drop off packages. Now, the tech giant wants to do the same thing with your car. Amazon announced a new service that gives it couriers access to a person's vehicle for the purpose of leaving package deliveries inside. "Amazon wants to use the connected technologies embedded in many modern vehicles today" to gain entry, reports The Verge. "The company is launching this new service in partnership with two major automakers -- General Motors and Volvo -- and will be rolling out in 37 cities in the U.S. starting today." From the report: Amazon has been beta testing the new service in California and Washington state for the past six months. To start out, the service will only be available to Amazon Prime subscribers. It's also limited to owners of GM and Volvo vehicles, model year 2015 or newer, with active OnStar and Volvo on Call accounts. Amazon says it plans to add other automobile brands over time. Packages that weigh over 50 pounds, are larger than 26 x 21 x 16 inches in size, require a signature, are valued over $1,300, or come from a third-party seller also are not eligible for in-car delivery.
To access the new delivery service, you need to add your car to your Amazon Key app and include a description of the vehicle, so Amazon's couriers will be able to locate it. The car will need to be parked within a certain radius of an address used for Amazon deliveries, so either home or work. Driveways, parking lots, parking garages, and street parking are all eligible locations, just as long as it's not at some random address across town. To find your car, Amazon's couriers will have access to its GPS location and license plate number, as well as an image of the car.
To access the new delivery service, you need to add your car to your Amazon Key app and include a description of the vehicle, so Amazon's couriers will be able to locate it. The car will need to be parked within a certain radius of an address used for Amazon deliveries, so either home or work. Driveways, parking lots, parking garages, and street parking are all eligible locations, just as long as it's not at some random address across town. To find your car, Amazon's couriers will have access to its GPS location and license plate number, as well as an image of the car.
It's amazing how much amazon has access to your stuff, isn't it?
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
Instructions to delivery service: Just move dead body over to the side if package will not fit between legs.
Someone had to do it.
put one in any town that makes it worth building, have someone at a counter and all i have to do is walk in show my driver's license or photo ID and get my package,m it is worth it to me if i have to drive half way across town to get my package a day earlier
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
I only know three people that own GM cars, and that's only because of MAGA. All three of them keep guns in their trunks. Hopefully some law prevents them from giving access to some random delivery person to their guns.
I really, really detest these click-bait, rile up the masses, blatantly false headlines. Why can't we have the intellectual honestly to write, "Amazon offers delivery to newer model Onstar-enabled cars for Prime users."? Is that really so fucking hard? And if the source article doesn't have the brain cells to do that, what's the point of calling these folks editors if they just cut and paste the same garbage?
My car isn't that make and model, isn't new enough, and other than when I'm out and about running errands, it's parked in secure areas that Amazon doesn't have access to. Plus they don't know what car I drive, and I have no plans of ever sharing that with them.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
Why does Amazon wants access to a car or my house?
Here's a $50 solution
1) Get large crate, fix it in place to prevent removal
2) Get padlock
3) Leave padlock inside crate
4) Delivery guy places package in crate
5) Delivery guy uses padlock, locks crate
6) Get home, use only key to open padlock
7) Get package
8) ???
9) PROFIT!
And before people start tearing down this idea, ask yourself, is the flaw you found worse than "letting a stranger in my home"....
" access to its GPS location and license plate number, as well as an image of the car"
And there is the next level of Amazon data mining. Car location, photo, license plate. All in their DB, forever.
What will they use it for? They probably don't even know yet. But use it they will.
... that Amazon will begin a new delivery service called "Amazon Suppository".
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
Given the high rent in California many people with jobs are homeless or living out of cars. They need to save money so ordering on Amazon makes sense. They can use smartphones to order but need an address for delivery. Till now they have been using Amazon lockers. Now they can get it delivered to their car.
**Life is too short to be serious**
So Amazon now has a video echo in your bedroom. It also knows your purchase history. So every time you have sex it knows (AI used to detect the sounds of sex. The camera makes it even easier). It knows how many condoms you ordered and hence how many you have left. So next time you go to have sex an Amazon drone will come to your window and knock and your Amazon Echo will ask "Do you need a condom? Say yes to purchase!!"
Profit!!!!
**Life is too short to be serious**
As soon as I saw the headline (somewhere else, not on /.) of course my first question was "how would they get get into my trunk"?
I'm obviously not going to give them my key and my car is DUMB. So it only works on a handful of newer cars that already have the ability to unlock the trunk from a remote app.
BRILLIANT. Your security was already compromised. Amazon is just taking advantage of that.
But is it a big deal? The most valuable thing in my trunk is my spare tire and I don't think anyone is going to steal that. ....
Okay, after this the most valuable thing in my trunk may be my latest Amazon purchase and this sort of normalizes unfamiliar people opening up cars and messing around with the contents of their trunks.
My car is usually where I am. If my car is at work, I probably am too. If my car is at home, so am I, but it's probably in a garage. I can't wait until an Amazon delivery person rings my doorbell and asks me to open my garage so they can put my package in the trunk.
Of course they could get really creepy and track me in real time and maybe put the delivery in my car while I'm eating dinner in a restaurant. .....
Didn't a journalist in Malta recently get blown up by a car bomb? (Yes). So now we're going to normalize people we don't know walking up to anyone's car and putting anything they want in the trunk.
I don't like it and while neither me nor anyone I know is likely to get a bomb planted in their trunk in the past if I saw some stranger trying to get into a friend's carI might confront them, now I'm just supposed to assume they're delivering a package. But that applies to the other Amazon program where they enter your house too.
That's not a burglar. No really, he's just putting our neighbor's groceries away.
Then why is he walking out with more stuff than he went in with?
Now those that earn SO little that they have to live in their car can order with their employer, too!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
No, Amazon HOPES you won't mind letting minimum wage delivery drivers into your home and/or car.
It's not like it's mandatory to use these services, and if you find it convenient and acceptable, more power to you. If you don't, fine. Noone will hold a gun to your head and make you use the service....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
No, most gun owners don't ever murder anyone.
This is quite true. The problem is that a non trivial percentage do use firearms in anger and we generally don't know in advance which ones they are.
Or do you seriously believe there are only twenty thousand or so gun owners in the USA?
I know there are were about 38,000 deaths by firearm in the USA last year and about 15,000 of these were not suicides. It's true most firearm owners are decent law abiding people but enough aren't that its a serious problem.
And imagine that someone cuts you off on the road. You're totally enraged at this awful behaviour. So, you immediately reach for the gun in the trunk of your car???
I have seen with my own eyes someone brandish a gun due to road rage. (no nobody got shot) Yes it was illegal and no they didn't seem to care. I've known quite a few people to carry loaded firearms in the glove compartment or other easily accessible locations. Do you seriously think someone who would consider brandishing a gun for such a trivial reason or who is so paranoid they think they need a loaded pistol within reach at all times would give a shit about the fact that transporting a weapon in such a fashion is likely illegal? It's not responsible people like (probably) you that I'm worried about. It's the people with anger management problems or high levels of paranoia that worry me and the fact that I can't reliably identify them until it is too late to avoid them.
You make some good points, but I don't often see anyone putting anything in the trunk of a car and then driving away in a different car.
I wouldn't accost someone I saw doing that, but I would think it was suspicious. Until now.
If this works for Amazon and some of their customers, more power to them. I'm probably missing the market where people have multiple cars so even if they're away from home there's always that 3rd (or 4th) car sitting in the driveway. And that 3rd car that hardly ever gets driven might just be the one they don't care much about and maybe even hope gets stolen.
Or maybe a garage.
I think that's a much better idea, actually. My garage is not that secure, but it's better than leaving something at my front door for anyone to see and grab. It's also probably at least as secure as my trunk.
No doubt I would be neglecting the huge market of people who don't have garages.