When devices are connected, they can spill your deepest secrets to dozens of companies. Take your connected car, as Ars Technica notes.
“All of the cars contacted a first-party domain (i.e., the OEM)—after all, all the cars tested were connected cars and that means connecting to something. And a few left it there—the Buick Envista and Mercedes-Benz EQS didn’t appear to reach out to anywhere else, for example.”
But some were more promiscuous.
“The [Tesla] Model 3 contacted 34 advertising, tracking, and analytic domains, as well as 37 domains from apps integrated into the infotainment system.”
Over 70 domains makes sense, when you treat a car as a very mobile computer.
Our family is about to buy a laptop, and I’m already dreading the experience. It will be loaded with bloatware from the computer manufacturer and the operating system provider. And it will include software from third parties, including software that is free for a limited time and then starts charging you.
Now take this same business model to a car, a computer that doesn’t have a keyboard or a mouse. And try to delete THOSE apps. Or imagine breach reporting.
And while you can find online courses for a Mac or a Dell, I don’t know of any computer courses in managing (not just using) a car. But if you don’t know how to manage your car, it’s your fault.
“Some of the automakers also deflected blame onto the embedded browser running inside the infotainment system and said it was up to users to select the right prompt when asked to accept or reject a cookie. And seven said that it’s the consumer’s responsibility to read and accept all of the terms and conditions for all the connected services, even though in many cases the software is already installed on the car.”
Which raises a question. If you don’t buy a car off the lot, you can customize the color, trim, and other hardware features. But what about the software? Can you order a car without pre-installed McAfee or Sirius/XM that starts billing you after a month?
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