Texas sues GM for unlawfully collecting and selling drivers' private data [pdf] • Hacker News Board

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

#331

Post by ericmay » Fri, Aug 16, 2024, 12:01 AM UTC

rockskon wrote: post #319

ericmay wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best way to combat this is walking and bike lanes. With no alternative to cars for most people you will see this kind of behavior continue. Trying to pit automakers against each other on this topic and others is the misdirection. They want to distract you from wanting alternatives so that you don’t even need to have a spying car in the first place.

What about every single person that doesn't live in the city and needs to commute 30+ miles to get to work?

What about them? The roads are still there and they can still use them.

I’m suggesting that future growth can be handled better by providing alternatives to forced car ownership, and so if you don’t want your data collected by your car you can have an alternative.

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

#332

Post by AnthonyMouse » Fri, Aug 16, 2024, 12:46 AM UTC

Spivak wrote: post #303

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then don't commit crimes? But that's the problem. Crimes are profitable. Suppose there are two insurance companies. One is following the law, the other one is bribing a mid-level employee of a car company to give them driver info and then using it to set rates and solicit policies. The CEO of the car company doesn't even know it's happening and the CEO of the insurance company does, but isn't telling anyone about i…

I think this line of argumentation follows and is logically consistent but if this is really how it worked then you're saying in the long run with probability 1 every executive will be a criminal. Nothing about what you're saying about the incentives is unique to white-collar financial crimes. For crimes that have a low chance of being caught the SOP is make the punishment disproportionately severe and weaponize the…

> I think this line of argumentation follows and is logically consistent but if this is really how it worked then you're saying in the long run with probability 1 every executive will be a criminal.

Certainly not. For example, if a company is run by an above-average executive who can produce good results without cheating, they won't be replaced by someone who cheats. But that's no general solution because it's not possible for every executive to be above-average.

> For crimes that have a low chance of being caught the SOP is make the punishment disproportionately severe and weaponize the people likely to observe or carry out the crime.

Yeah, that's the War on Drugs strategy. It's aggressively broken and encourages the dangerous and socially destructive behaviors associated with organized crime.

> I don't see how your example resolves as anything other than the mid-level employee is guilty of bribery, and CEO of the insurance company is guilty of 2nd degree $yet-to-be-derermined-crime-name. I don't expect a CEO to somehow know of literally any crime that occurs by any of their employees, just crime by policy.

A CEO in a company that isn't the size of a country is going to be directly involved in the company's operations. That companies have grown so large that their owners and executives no longer have a handle on what's happening inside them is the problem.

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

#333

Post by AbrahamParangi » Fri, Aug 16, 2024, 1:26 AM UTC

klyrs wrote: post #314

AbrahamParangi wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Car insurance companies are already generally legally required to give notice in writing 30 days before cancelling your policy, even for material changes in risk. Let’s try to stick to the real world.

You're the one proposing to change real world policies. I find it really interesting that I'm speaking directly from the libertarian playbook and the anti-insurance folks in the conversation are telling me to trust the government regulations. Especially when those very government regulations would be eviscerated by the proposed changes.

You are unable to think precisely enough to have this conversation.

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

#334

Post by jltsiren » Fri, Aug 16, 2024, 1:57 AM UTC

hansvm wrote: post #328

jltsiren wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mandatory car insurance is essentially a welfare benefit. The benefit is just administered by insurance companies, because they are believed to be more efficient than the government. (This is pretty common for all kinds of benefits around the world.) Mandatory insurance is not a private contract two parties have reached at their own initiative, and the usual business considerations don't apply. If an insurance compan…

Mandatory car insurance, in theory, moves money from drivers (proportional to the risk they represent) to victims (proportional to the damages caused), plus a cut for the insurance company. I'm missing something in your flow of ideas. Is it a welfare benefit because that idealized theory of insurance is itself a welfare benefit or because when insurance is mandated it doesn't live up to expectations?

The insurance is mandated, and the focus is more on guaranteed benefits to the victims than on fairness for the people paying them.

If you can't afford to pay for the damages you caused, that's your problem. You took the risk, and now you face the consequences. There is no reason to make the insurance mandatory to prevent that. But if the victim doesn't get any compensation because you can't afford to pay, that's a public problem. Now there is a reason to make the insurance mandatory, and it's particularly important that the riskiest drivers have insurance. If you make it too expensive for them, they may choose to drive without insurance. Which is exactly what you wanted to avoid in the first place.

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

#335

Post by lotsofpulp » Fri, Aug 16, 2024, 2:02 AM UTC

simcup wrote: post #324

lotsofpulp wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s amazing, the US plays around in $10k to $50k ranges.

out of curiosity: how much are you guys paying per month? i had, at that moment, 7 years of no accidents and the 9/1999 version of [1] and was at ~25euro/month [1] https://www.adac.de/rund-ums-fahrzeug/auto-kaufen-verkaufen/...

$50 per month for $500,000 of liability only insurance for 5,000 miles per year. Since it is only liability insurance, the type of car I have does not matter.

I have 20 years of no accidents or insurance claims.

I assume countries where healthcare is covered more extensively, such as Germany, have lower premiums? Although, I think Germany is health insurance covered healthcare, so I wonder if a German health insurance company would sue the auto insurer of an at fault driver to recover healthcare costs. In that case, it would be similar to the USA.

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

#336

Post by lp0_on_fire » Fri, Aug 16, 2024, 2:23 AM UTC

digging wrote: post #299

lp0_on_fire wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you think an elected official working against the interests of the constituency is just going to naturally get voted out of office, I don't have the energy for the depth this conversation requires. Regardless of what you think that's exactly how democracy works. If enough of his constituency thinks he is working against their interests they will vote him out. Conversely, if enough of his constituency thinks he i…

> Regardless of what you think that's exactly how democracy works. As I said, I can't continue this conversation. Our understandings are too far apart.

Your understanding seems to be "the rubes are too stupid to know what's for their own good" so it's probably good we don't continue the conversation - it makes you dangerous.

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

#337

Post by 14 » Fri, Aug 16, 2024, 3:10 AM UTC

Bloating wrote: post #141

14 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my opinion who cares if it breaks the car gps. I have my phone that already does this function and never needed my car to do this. I would a thousand time over delete my car gps if it meant no tracking.

So you perfer your phone to track you rather than your car

Yes. I can see turn my phone off or turn off location services or leave it at home since cell towers can track me should I really want to stay private. For example should I visit a brothel I might want that private. If I was going to a HIV clinic I might want that private. Should I be be cheating I might want that private. All made up examples but we should have the ability to remain anonymous and not have our car companies selling that information.

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

#338

Post by rockskon » Fri, Aug 16, 2024, 4:11 AM UTC

ericmay wrote: post #331

rockskon wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about every single person that doesn't live in the city and needs to commute 30+ miles to get to work?

What about them? The roads are still there and they can still use them. I’m suggesting that future growth can be handled better by providing alternatives to forced car ownership, and so if you don’t want your data collected by your car you can have an alternative.

????

There is no reasonable alternative. Public transport is unreasinable for most people when you look at suburban and rural areas for the bulk of places people live and work given how spread out everything is.

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

#339

Post by account42 » Fri, Aug 16, 2024, 7:45 AM UTC

EvanAnderson wrote: post #140

akira2501 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why aren't companies treated the same? It's more of a hostage negotiation. You want to hurt the company and it's owners, but if you sue too hard, you're likely to just hurt it's workers and it's customers. It's why preventing companies from reaching _anything near_ monopoly size is so important for corporate jurisprudence. "Too big to fail" is just the tip of this insane iceberg we've allowed to grow into our econo…

> 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.

> 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.

It is exactly what we want. Otherwise the only deciding factor for what to invest in is maximum profit and that just incentivizes companies to skirt the law as much as possible.

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

#340

Post by account42 » Fri, Aug 16, 2024, 7:55 AM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #330

JadeNB wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But that's the problem. Crimes are profitable. Which is why we need the law to make crimes not profitable, or at least to attach enough personal risk to dissuade decision makers. It's how we got US corporations to stop dispensing bribes in foreign countries, to which exactly the same logic applies.

So here's the problem. There are some crimes that have a relatively low probability of detection. It doesn't even have to be that low; say it's 40%. Then there are people with nothing to lose. Some mid-level manager who isn't very good at it, isn't making his numbers. If he plays by the rules, he's about to get canned and lose his house and his wife. If he cheats and gets caught, there's a 40% chance he goes to jail,…

> To fix this you need to attach a penalty to someone who both has something to lose and is in a position to detect the crime. But the someone with something to lose are the owners and when they're diffuse passive investors they're not in a position to detect the crime.

If they had any accountability they would find ways to put themselves in such a position.