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Automakers are sharing consumers' driving behavior with insurance companies

nytimes.com

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Re: Automakers are sharing consumers' driving behavior with insurance companies

#161

Post by troyvit »

ambichook wrote: post #151
troyvit wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The auto industry has fought tooth and nail against safety requirements[1] and still fights today against more stringent fuel standards[2][3]. Not only would they fight regulations like data safety that would open them to potential litigation when lose the data or sell it to the wrong player, but they would win. Privacy isn't the political football that the environment is, and you can't point to death statistics like…

they fight it because it works and impacts their bottom line, i dont see how that's evidence that regulation is ineffective as a whole because people can just find loopholes

I don't think regulation is ineffective as a whole, but I do think that regulation won't be able to curb the industry's hunger for data or its incompetence in how it collects it. I believe this is the case because the industry will fight just as vigorously to collect this data while regulators will be less invested in stopping it. I believe regulators will be less invested in stopping it because there has been a steady degradation in our expectation of privacy in this area since smart phones. Any auto industry lobbyist just has to point out that tracking your driving habits and selling that data to insurance companies is little different from what google and apple already do.

Re: Automakers are sharing consumers' driving behavior with insurance companies

#162

Post by JumpCrisscross »

PH95VuimJjqBqy wrote: post #159
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> all of your counterexamples involve the government I’m trying to avoid the miasma of conflicting rights. Somewhere in this thread I referenced a car spilling diesel on private land. This impact the value of neighbouring plots. On entirely private merits, the owner’s ability to operate their property, on their property, willy nilly, is curtailed. Simpler, if more absurd example: someone’s pet or kid wanders on your…

In other words, you think it's ok to insist on a contract with a loan for 50% interest. I, and many others, disagree and think that's a heinous abuse despite the argument that both parties willingly entered into the agreement.

> you think it's ok to insist on a contract with a loan for 50% interest

This is a total non sequitur. (And sure, if both participants are wealthy institutions and knowledgeable and uncoerced.)

Re: Automakers are sharing consumers' driving behavior with insurance companies

#163

Post by JumpCrisscross »

oliv__ wrote: post #158
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we've reached the point where technology has shifted to working against us Everyone has always said this since the dawn of farming. It’s not a particularly useful insight: the question is in how and how it is to be banned or balanced.

So you think today's technology is comparable to farming?

> you think today's technology is comparable to farming?

That’s a not what “since” means.

If a technology causes social change, it will create winners and losers. Those winners tend to autocorrelate (inversely to the magnitude of the shift). As a result, small technological revolutions tend to result in a shift against the broader “us” while broader ones disempower an elite that tries to gain sympathy by aligning itself with that broader “us”. If it doesn’t do either of those, it is—almost by definition—not a technological shift that resulted in social change.

As a result, complaining about technology working against a nebulous “us” is basically saying we had technology that caused social change. Which isn’t a novel point.

Re: Automakers are sharing consumers' driving behavior with insurance companies

#164

Post by m463 »

batch12 wrote: post #13

When I got my last car, it had a sticker instructing me to press the SOS button to opt out of data collection. The gentleman that answered acted confused when I made the request, taking the stance that he wasn't aware of data collection from the car and maybe I should contact the manufacturer. It was only after I read him the sticker text verbatim that he went into a scripted response and confirmed the opt out. Shady…

The confusion was likely a scripted response too.

I had a friend who worked with call centers, taking orders over the phone. they had a script for everything, and after they quickly took your order, they started with a scripted upsell. If the person balked, they had responses for everything so they could continue. The only way out of the script was if the customer said "I will cancel my order". The call center person would be fired if they did not follow the script.

Re: Automakers are sharing consumers' driving behavior with insurance companies

#165

Post by m463 »

elevenones wrote: post #101

(From the Toyota Connected Services Disclaimer) Your Responsibilities Your responsibilities include: (1) informing passengers and drivers of your vehicle that data is collected and used by us, and (2) notifying us of a sale or transfer of your vehicle. If you do not notify us of a sale or transfer, we may continue to send data about the vehicle to the subscriber's Account Information currently on file, and we are not…

I remember driving a nissan leaf. You had an opt-out prompt every time you drove the car.

Re: Automakers are sharing consumers' driving behavior with insurance companies

#166

Post by PH95VuimJjqBqy »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #162
PH95VuimJjqBqy wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In other words, you think it's ok to insist on a contract with a loan for 50% interest. I, and many others, disagree and think that's a heinous abuse despite the argument that both parties willingly entered into the agreement.

> you think it's ok to insist on a contract with a loan for 50% interest This is a total non sequitur . (And sure, if both participants are wealthy institutions and knowledgeable and uncoerced.)

It's not a non sequitur so much as it was a preparation to make the point I'm about to make.

There is no world in which two institutions with plenty of money, knowledge, and a lack of coercion are going to come to an agreement for a loan with 50% interest.

Theory vs practice. In theory what you're saying could happen, in practice it's only going to happen when one party has a severe imbalance against the other party (and you know this or you wouldn't have tried to head off that argument). Since contract law deals with practice, contract law disagrees with your assessment that it should be allowed.

Which goes back to the whole ownership thing.

Just because someone _can_ draw up a contract to muddy ownership to the point that the seller of a $30k+ USD vehicle can retain control and absolutely limit what the purchaser can do does not mean contract law should allow it.

And there's too much precedence for this sort of thing for you to have a leg to stand on (although I'm sure you'll try). Just because someone _can_ sign a non-compete with no expiration does not mean the law should allow it.

ad nauseum.

Arguing that because contracts today muddy ownership so you can't act as if the purchaser has certain rights is missing the point.

Re: Automakers are sharing consumers' driving behavior with insurance companies

#167

Post by alexjplant »

All new manufacture cars sold in the US already have "black box" data recorders that can be dumped in the event of an accident. In many cases this can even be done without a warrant as of a decade ago [1] - not sure whether that's changed. In any event it seems as though this is a natural evolution in concert with those voluntary ODB-II devices that insurers started using to record driving habits.

[1] https://www.edmunds.com/car-technology/car-black-box-recorde...

Re: Automakers are sharing consumers' driving behavior with insurance companies

#169

Post by unethical_ban »

Can this be opted out at the dealer? Black box collection OR wireless connectivity?

If not, are there guides on disabling the modem without damaging diagnostics or infotainment?

I want a car that does not transmit data. Which means I may need to get my 2010s crossover rebuilt and reupholstered instead of getting a new car.

Re: Automakers are sharing consumers' driving behavior with insurance companies

#170

Post by ytx » 

  > "More specifically, automakers are selling access to the data to Lexis Nexis, which is then crafting “risk scores” insurance companies then use to adjust rates. Usually upward"
In an ideal world, such data-harvesting might lead to cheaper prices / a more efficient insurance market - which would make the privacy loss worth considering from a trade-off standpoint, at least in theory.

Unfortunately it's instead likely to just lead to higher margins for insurance companies. And the only way to compete would be to harvest more data for better predictions.

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