Senator Sends Automakers Letter Criticizing Their Nonexistent Privacy Standards | Hacker News Reader

Senator Sends Automakers Letter Criticizing Their Nonexistent Privacy Standards

techdirt.com

69 pointsrntn12 comments

Penning a letter is some nice posturing, but how about sponsoring some legislation?

Pushing an industry into self-regulation has long been a way governments use to reduce regulatory burden and inflexibility to change. Letting them know they had better solve a problem or the government will solve it for them, probably in a way that's worse for everyone, can push industries into action. Sometimes it works, sometimes it does not.

It also helps raise public awareness of the issue. Most people have no idea how much info automakers are sucking up about consumers. All the “connected” infotainment systems in modern vehicles can phone home whenever and with whatever data they want, and it’s all implicitly allowed by arcane provisions buried in the terms of service.

The digital surveillance apparatus, of which this car business is only a small corner, spans industries and sectors and is valued at many tens of billions of dollars per year. There's no chance that a senator sending a letter makes more than a tiny and transient blip. There's a reason we have an EPA and not just the occasional sternly worded letter about too-flammable rivers.

they prefer to give industries the opportunity to increase their political donations and let the issue slide rather than take action to fix it.

I was surprised this didn’t come from Wyden. Is this letter from Markey indicative of a larger focus on privacy concerns from this senator or is there some alternative reasoning/agenda behind this?

When I saw this headline I thought "Why is it always only Wyden" and then... it's not Wyden! I guess privacy is one of Marky's things:

  "He is co-chair of the Congressional Privacy Caucus (CPC) which aims to educate members of Congress and staff on matters of individual privacy, to provide a forum for the discussion of these issues and to serve as legislative advocates for personal privacy."

The CPC: https://www.markey.senate.gov/news/press-releases/the-congre...

Yay

That's all what can be said. Assuming senator good will. But maybe he is just messaging: not stopping you, nothing remotely like that, keep going !

Good work senator !

Extends way beyond cars... but progress not perfection.

Shit needs to _only_ connect to the farking internet if it _really really_ needs to. There is no reason a car needs to connect to the internet. There is no reason a vaccuum needs to connect to the internet. There is no reason a fridge, blender, light switch, chair, crock pot, toaster, scale, camera, or bajillion other devices need an internet connection. I hate to introduce regulation, but Silicon Valley is dead set on providing all the spy tools to the three letter agencies, under the guise they think they can control them by "resisting". The only solution is not not build these dumb capabilities in the first place.

Who are you to tell me I can't connect my crock pot to the internet if I want to?

Seems to me the better solution is to make it illegal to collect data through every device and share/sell it.

I'm trying to remember the last time when a manufacturer chose doing the right thing and following the letter and spirit of the law... over profit. That's my point... even making this stuff available will inevitably turn into abuse.

> doing the right thing > following the letter and spirit of the law

These things do not go hand-in-hand. Corporations aren't going to "do the right thing", no, but they certainly are going to follow the (letter of the) law to some extent. I don't imagine Google pays millions of dollars to lawyers for them to sit around :P

This sort of logic can be used to dismiss the entirety of law - after all, crime still exists despite being illegal, so what's the point, right?

So again, the bigger issue is making it difficult/impossible for corporations to circumvent (hopefully sane) laws - and probably to minimize the influence they have on creating that legislation.

Anyway, this is also why FOSS is important - assuming these systems were made free and open source, and a company wants to abuse their position... users aren't locked into their platform and can hopefully move to another

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