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Comment by post_break | Hacker News Reader

Does this include vehicle data? That's a big one. Your new car selling you out constantly.

I've been driving connected cars for a decade and I haven't felt sold out yet. What am I missing?

I bought a car earlier this year and it took about a week before I started getting car warranty junk mail for the new car.

I always thought that is from companies that get their hands on registration data. Or I could be wrong and it is the dealer itself selling it on not the manufacturer.

Pretty sure it's registration data. Anything public is now used for junk. We transferred a piece of property this year and have been getting constant spam for realtors to sell it for us. We bought a used car from an individual and started getting spam for warranties once we registered it and got plates.

Just to be clear: real estate is generally public records viewable by anybody, while vehicle titles/registrations generally aren't (without having been deliberately sold by the state).

Are you asking for articles that show how connected car data is being sold left and right?

Tail risk. Only <1% of people get punished by their car's data. IMO that's still too much.

Your driving habits, and everyone around you are impacting car insurance for example.

This is not straightforwardly true. Many people say that Toyota sells their data to insurance companies, but they do not unless you *affirmatively* opt in.

If you read the lawsuits and allegations carefully, they all say that they were tricked into opting in (NOT that they weren't opted in). If you review the setup process you see that the claim is outlandish and likely someone else did setup for them or they "forgot."

Toyota makes you affirmatively click a "yes" or "no" (or maybe it says "Accept" / "Reject" or whatever) for Insurance sharing when setting up a profile.

Are you in the US? Currently if you are in the US and not native-born, you're at very direct risk. That data is how ICE builds their enforcement leads. It's still often wrong, so they might break down your door and arrest you at gunpoint anyways.

> That data is how ICE builds their enforcement leads

Which is kind of ironic when you think about how much of their target demographic is driving 1999 Ford Rangers and 2003 Chevy Savannas.

Obviously they'll just augment it with ALPR, but still.

* Massachusetts' RMV AFAICT resells one's data, resulting in new car purchasers receiving a huge amount of fraud in their mail. It can be difficult to distinguish what is a legitimate correspondence from the dealership vs. what isn't, as the fraud mail does not clearly identify itself. (And in fact, that's the tell.)

* My Subaru runs ads for Sirius XM. (Ad, on the infotainment screen. While the car's in motion.) I did not pay for my car to run ads, obviously, and obviously that was never mentioned by the dealer, ever, before or after purchase.

You're missing the fact that if I wanted to find you and kill you companies are collecting that location data and I can buy it and use it to accomplish my goal.

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