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Texas sues GM for unlaw­ful­ly collecting and selling dri­vers' pri­vate data [pdf]

texasattorneygeneral.gov

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Re: Texas sues GM for unlaw­ful­ly collecting and selling dri­vers' pri­vate data [pdf]

#181

Post by plasticchris »

kube-system wrote: post #88
lotsofpulp wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Firstly, the entire port of insurance is to spread risk. If the the market for insurance is "too efficient" at determining who is high-risk and who is not, then it is no longer fulfilling its social function. Insurance is a business, where the insured pays an insurer to pay for costs for damages that the insured cannot afford to pay. The insurer's job is to calculate the amount of premium necessary to ensure they ca…

> If the goal is to subsidize a specific population, then that should be a government function via taxes. As I understand, all 50 states require insurers to write high risk drivers policies through assigned risk plans. I guess you could shuffle the money through the state as well, but it seems like an inefficient way to accomplish the same. But really, car insurance and their respective mandates exist to protect the…

Mandatory car insurance is a thing in most of the us, except for New Hampshire and Virginia.

Re: Texas sues GM for unlaw­ful­ly collecting and selling dri­vers' pri­vate data [pdf]

#182

Post by gottorf »

digging wrote: post #113
stctw wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Banning books I don't see how comments saying that are accepted here. Everyone knows that no books are being banned anywhere in the country. You can go to a bookstore or web site and buy whatever books you want. They can be bought in public or delivered to your home. Publishers can publish whatever they want. The First Amendment protects authors, publishers, and readers. Meanwhile, in the UK, if you share a message…

Forcibly removing books (about very specific topics related to oppressed cultural minorities) from public school libraries is not the same thing as enacting a national ban on printing or trading those books, no. But it's a lot closer to a total ban than it is to not banning books. (And I stand by "forcibly," if you've seen any of the adults screaming at school board hearings or issuing threats over these books)

> oppressed cultural minorities

What oppressed cultural minorities? Nearly the entirety of the media landscape outright celebrates LGBTQ, if that's what you're talking about. I'd be hard-pressed to think of a more exaggerated use of the word "oppression".

Does the fact that you view this group as oppressed make a difference on whether such a ban is more or less valid?

Re: Texas sues GM for unlaw­ful­ly collecting and selling dri­vers' pri­vate data [pdf]

#183

Post by perfectstorm »

randcraw wrote: post #18

I can't imagine why this case should succeed if this same practice has long been tolerated by telcos or Facebook -- any company that provides no opt-out to collection and sale of personal info. If Texas had real guts, they'd pass a law that clearly prohibits the collection and sale of personal info without explicit opt-in. But nooooooo...

lot of these opt-in toggles are ON by default in the U.S but my previous employer's legal department made sure that it's OFF by default in EU.

Re: Texas sues GM for unlaw­ful­ly collecting and selling dri­vers' pri­vate data [pdf]

#184

Post by isr »

subsubzero wrote: post #41

Fun fact, as a owner of a GMC auto I got a innocent looking email about the discontinuation of the Onstar Smart driver service which was the service in question that violated many US laws and sent data to insurance companies without customers authorization. I hope this hits GM really hard as this type of behavior will never cease until massive amounts of money is extracted from the perpetrators(GM etc).

How about this. For criminal behaviour which crosses a certain $ threshold (as in, what size of fine is levied by the courts/fed authorities), the entire remuneration given to anyone who served on the board of directors is considered forfeit, and used to pay the fine. That means seizing secondary properties from current or ex directors, and other assets.

Once that pool is exhausted, then you ding the shareholders (via draining the company's own coffers).

Sure, this would give rise to some schemes of "how do I squirrel away my bonuses, in case they come after me tomorrow", but hubris & the unpredictability of this would still lead to some big, eye watering examples. Which would have the necessary deterrent effect.

And yes, this WOULD be justice. Those who did the wrong, and profited from it, SHOULD pay.

Re: Texas sues GM for unlaw­ful­ly collecting and selling dri­vers' pri­vate data [pdf]

#185

Post by vel0city »

ds_opseeker wrote: post #165
vel0city wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like we need better enforcement of insurance requirements. Driving a car uninsured should have some extremely stiff penalties. Once again, maybe if the penalties are high enough and the costs expensive enough for more people, there'd actually be more of a push to re-think overly car dependent life. It will optimize society overall to have risky, uninsurable drivers not driving . It's not like healthcare. There…

> Driving a car uninsured should have some extremely stiff penalties. I want to agree with you, but wonder if you have ever been poor? When you need the car to get to work so you can feed your kids, but you can't afford all of - feed kids - rent - insurance because you got hit by a surprise medical bill (kid got sick, maybe?) I'm strongly in favor of your end goal (less car-dependent life), I'm just cautious about us…

Let's expand that. Let's name your hypothetical person, Bob. He's living on the edge financially, and decides to go without insurance.

Let's bring in another person, Alice. Alice is also not in great financial shape. But Alice is able to pay for insurance and follows all the rules. Alice has a small amount of savings, go Alice!

One day, Bob hits Alice. It causes medical issues for Alice. Alice might have insurance, but it's potentially still expensive for Alice. Because of her injuries she can't work for a few weeks. She works hourly, so now loses wages. Luckily with FMLA she won't necessarily lose her job, but she needed every paycheck. But it doesn't really matter, because her car is now gone. She can't drive to work anymore. She can't drive to groceries. She can't afford a car, as a huge chunk her savings went to cover those medical bills and missed paychecks. She's pretty SOL huh.

Sounds like we need to let Bob off the hook for inflicting all this on Alice. After all, he needed to drive without insurance.

No. We should just make it possible so Bob didn't need to drive in the first place instead of excusing his choice to still drive when he couldn't really afford it. We should structure the incentives so Bob doesn't want to drive if he can't afford it.

People driving without insurance ruin lives like Alice's all the time.

Re: Texas sues GM for unlaw­ful­ly collecting and selling dri­vers' pri­vate data [pdf]

#186

Post by pests »

throwaway48476 wrote: post #171
EvanAnderson wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You want to hurt the company and it's owners... The owners of big companies include lots of pension plans, index funds, etc. Hurting those owners, who didn't have any say in the bad decisions, is probably not what we want. Jail for executives who approve or have knowledge of illegal activities sounds good to me.

Companies need to have to name someone who is criminally responsible for the companies actions.

How much would you need to be paid to assume this role for Google or other big tech companies?

Re: Texas sues GM for unlaw­ful­ly collecting and selling dri­vers' pri­vate data [pdf]

#187

Post by openasocket »

gottorf wrote: post #182
digging wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forcibly removing books (about very specific topics related to oppressed cultural minorities) from public school libraries is not the same thing as enacting a national ban on printing or trading those books, no. But it's a lot closer to a total ban than it is to not banning books. (And I stand by "forcibly," if you've seen any of the adults screaming at school board hearings or issuing threats over these books)

> oppressed cultural minorities What oppressed cultural minorities? Nearly the entirety of the media landscape outright celebrates LGBTQ, if that's what you're talking about. I'd be hard-pressed to think of a more exaggerated use of the word "oppression". Does the fact that you view this group as oppressed make a difference on whether such a ban is more or less valid?

Off the top of my head: LGBTQ people are significantly more likely to be assaulted or murdered than the average population: https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2022/07/11/violentvictimiz...

Also, Ken Paxton, the Texas AG, has publicly stated he would be in favor of Texas banning being gay again

Re: Texas sues GM for unlaw­ful­ly collecting and selling dri­vers' pri­vate data [pdf]

#188

Post by vel0city »

bobthepanda wrote: post #156
vel0city wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like we need better enforcement of insurance requirements. Driving a car uninsured should have some extremely stiff penalties. Once again, maybe if the penalties are high enough and the costs expensive enough for more people, there'd actually be more of a push to re-think overly car dependent life. It will optimize society overall to have risky, uninsurable drivers not driving . It's not like healthcare. There…

Realistically, the other person ends up in jail and then you still can’t get compensated for car repairs. It’s not super clear why that would be better than the pooling of risk that happens today that results in compensation. American society has chosen to create a built environment that is inhospitable to anything else except driving, so I don’t think this is actually a real choice. The people who are getting into c…

I'm saying they should face such extreme penalties it's not worth it anymore and have it policed so those people aren't on the roads in the first place to get in a collision. Right now you're pretty much not going to have anything happen driving without insurance unless you get into an accident that you can't escape from. If it was highly likely for someone to face judgement every time they went out you'd probably have significantly fewer uninsured drivers out there.

Re: Texas sues GM for unlaw­ful­ly collecting and selling dri­vers' pri­vate data [pdf]

#190

Post by downrightmike »

blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #84

They also should be looking at other brands who did this - like Subaru, Hyundai/Kia, Mitsubishi, etc. I recall that Subaru in particular did not revise their location sharing policy when articles came out earlier this year about how these companies resell data to brokers like Lexis Nexis or Verisk. If you get a new Subaru with a Sirius XM radio for example, something that gets forced onto many or all configuration of…

We should just have full data-autonomy enshrined in law. This starts that path.
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