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Re:AMA: We're the Researchers who looked into the privacy of... by sandworm101 on Thursday September 21, 2023 @01:46PM (#37601258)
You should care, but spend some time to appreciate the issue before rushing to judgement. There is too much armchair laweying going on in this area. I just watched louis rossmann's vid about cars collecting sexual histories. Too many people don't know what these user agreements are in the real world. BMW doesn't want to monetize your sexual history. They probably couldn't do that even with user consent. This sort of language is about protecting the car company from the user when the user is suing the car company.

Example: Car company collects location data for legitimate uses such as safety, product development or legal requirements. Then a leak happens. Some blogger looks at the data and notices that the local mayor's car parks at a gay bar ever Friday night, often remaining there until saturday afternoon. The implications are clear. Mayor then sues car company for collecting his "sexual history". The car company can then point to the user agreement. They are covered for not just the location data, but all the things that can be inferred from that location data. These seemingly outrageous agreements are more lawyers covering their asses than companies actually attempting to collect.

A better answer may be to adjust laws not to ban or unban such tracking, but simply to mandate off switches. A mechanical switch that disables the GPS antenna would cost maybe 10$ per car, comparable to any number of rarely-used mandatory features in cars these days.

Re:AMA: We're the Researchers who looked into the privacy of... by hiatus on Thursday September 21, 2023 @04:55PM (#37604184)
I don't understand this argument though. The car company did not disclose any sexual history and only the location data that it says it collected. That things can be inferred from the data seems like a legal slippery slope. Are there examples of such cases going to trial without being thrown out?