Senator Sends Automakers Letter Criticizing Their Nonexistent Privacy Standards

https://www.techdirt.com/2023/12/07/senator-markey-sends-automakers-a-letter-criticizing-their-nonexistent-privacy-standards/

by rntn • 3 years ago

69 12 3 years ago

techdirt.com

thfuran2• 3 years ago

Penning a letter is some nice posturing, but how about sponsoring some legislation?

Mountain_Skies• 3 years ago

Pushing an industry into self-regulation has long been a way governments use to reduce regulatory burden and inflexibility to change. Letting them know they had better solve a problem or the government will solve it for them, probably in a way that's worse for everyone, can push industries into action. Sometimes it works, sometimes it does not.

henriquez• 3 years ago

It also helps raise public awareness of the issue. Most people have no idea how much info automakers are sucking up about consumers. All the “connected” infotainment systems in modern vehicles can phone home whenever and with whatever data they want, and it’s all implicitly allowed by arcane provisions buried in the terms of service.

thfuran2• 3 years ago

The digital surveillance apparatus, of which this car business is only a small corner, spans industries and sectors and is valued at many tens of billions of dollars per year. There's no chance that a senator sending a letter makes more than a tiny and transient blip. There's a reason we have an EPA and not just the occasional sternly worded letter about too-flammable rivers.

didntknowya• 3 years ago

they prefer to give industries the opportunity to increase their political donations and let the issue slide rather than take action to fix it.

SOLAR_FIELDS• 3 years ago

I was surprised this didn’t come from Wyden. Is this letter from Markey indicative of a larger focus on privacy concerns from this senator or is there some alternative reasoning/agenda behind this?

blakesterz• 3 years ago

When I saw this headline I thought "Why is it always only Wyden" and then... it's not Wyden! I guess privacy is one of Marky's things:

  "He is co-chair of the Congressional Privacy Caucus (CPC) which aims to educate members of Congress and staff on matters of individual privacy, to provide a forum for the discussion of these issues and to serve as legislative advocates for personal privacy."

The CPC: https://www.markey.senate.gov/news/press-releases/the-congre...

exabrial2• 3 years ago

Extends way beyond cars... but progress not perfection.

Shit needs to _only_ connect to the farking internet if it _really really_ needs to. There is no reason a car needs to connect to the internet. There is no reason a vaccuum needs to connect to the internet. There is no reason a fridge, blender, light switch, chair, crock pot, toaster, scale, camera, or bajillion other devices need an internet connection. I hate to introduce regulation, but Silicon Valley is dead set on providing all the spy tools to the three letter agencies, under the guise they think they can control them by "resisting". The only solution is not not build these dumb capabilities in the first place.

squigz2• 3 years ago

Who are you to tell me I can't connect my crock pot to the internet if I want to?

Seems to me the better solution is to make it illegal to collect data through every device and share/sell it.

exabrial2• 3 years ago

I'm trying to remember the last time when a manufacturer chose doing the right thing and following the letter and spirit of the law... over profit. That's my point... even making this stuff available will inevitably turn into abuse.

Woodi• 3 years ago

Yay

That's all what can be said. Assuming senator good will. But maybe he is just messaging: not stopping you, nothing remotely like that, keep going !

Good work senator !

Senator Sends Automakers Letter Criticizing Their Nonexistent Privacy Standards

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