Lawsuit accuses GM of sharing drivers' data with insurers without consent | Hacker News Reader

Lawsuit accuses GM of sharing drivers' data with insurers without consent

theregister.com

26 pointsbeardyw9 comments

Is there any car manufacturer creating private-er (and simpler) cars?

A big tool in removing our ownership rights has been increasing computerization--more and more repairs require a trip to a manufacturer-controlled dealership just to get permissions to use already-working hardware.

Electric motors should be simpler and easier to fix than an ICE, but things are going toward more complexity not less.

I literally have never seen a digital feature on a vehicle that didn't actively make my experience worse. I have a phone with all the music I want; just give me an aux port; I don't want your shite music software or SiriusXM. Why am I waiting for my backup camera to load? Cool, you moved all the temperature and volume settings to a touch screen, so now I have to pull over to the side of the road to adjust them safely?

I'm pretty sure the drivers already gave consent to have their data disseminated and sold freely to third parties in the T&Cs they clicked through when setting up the navigation system. Of course this doesn't make it acceptable for GM to do this.

> I'm pretty sure the drivers already gave consent to have their data disseminated and sold freely to third parties in the T&Cs they clicked through when setting up the navigation system.

While it seems you and I are mostly on the same page, I'd go further and say that this isn't consent. Yes, the law says it's consent, but that's the problem: the law is wrong.

You're pretty sure? Were you there?

The New York Times reported a sales person admitted enrolling people without consent.[1]

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/23/technology/general-motors...

Related other lawsuit news from last month:

Florida Man Sues G.M. and LexisNexis Over Sale of His Cadillac Data

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/14/technology/gm-lexis-nexis...

Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39709991

Followed by:

General Motors Quits Sharing Driving Behavior with Data Brokers

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39793903

I'm surprised there is no opt-out.

It might be better for people to add their own smarts to vehicles (remote starters, etc) that they might have more control over.

control (i.e. social or political power) doesn't work like that

it would never recede. it must move from less control towards more control, not less. this is terrible and we should fight it, but we'll lose anyways.

I have a 2018 Chevy, and cancelled onstar immediately, which was intentionally an exercise in annoyance and confusion. But I still got metrics emailed to me.

I found a way to detach the wireless dongler tucked up behind my glove box. The only side effect was my little digi-compass not telling me which direction I was pointing anymore.

I don't think they let you do that anymore.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com