I mean, GM did gather the listening habits of 90,000 "volunteers".

https://boingboing.net/2018/10/23/dont-touch-that-dial.html

Thank you. Re-reading it, I’m sure you’re correct.

> GM would benefit from focusing engineers and investment on one approach to more tightly connecting in-vehicle infotainment and navigation with features such as assisted driving, Edward Kummer, GM's chief digital officer, and Mike Himche, executive director of digital cockpit experience, said in an interview.

This is the actual reasoning provided by GM sources in the article. I jumped the gun.

I can very much sympathize with the desire to concentrate engineering efforts, and I’m sure there are things they would love to spend time on that would be eclipsed or ignored if the user lives in CarPlay or Android Auto.

But this is concentrating resources in the wrong direction, for the wrong reasons, with little useful gain.

It's not supposition. Every vehicle that has telematics hardware, regardless of subscription status or options purchased, is sending a near constant stream of location, vehicle, and environmental data back to the manufacturer.

The only way to stop it is to disconnect the antenna for the cellular modem or cut its power.