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I got an email from OnStar the other day saying it contacted my bank and updated my card info because I had gotten an old card and hadn’t updated the info, I don’t pay for OnStar but the dealership MAKES you set it up even if you don’t use it.
How the fuck are they allowed to contact my bank and get information like that? Weirded my TF out to say the least.
They did that to me. I specifically gave them a card I knew was going to expire before the trial period was over and they got the new information anyway.
If I remember correctly, it’s a “feature” the credit card companies have so your subscriptions don’t lapse.
How is that fucking legal?
This is more based on authorization vs CC details. It’s much safer for a company than holding onto credit card numbers. Creating a subscriptions generates an authorization code which is good for the account, not just a specific card number. Revoking that authorization is a separate call to the bank rather than just having a credit card replaced.
That authorization shouldn’t be indefinite either though. After three years of no activity and a card expiring, OnStar was still able to make a charge to renew that trial subscription.
And looking around the web, there are a few stories from that 2016 time frame to indicate that it was a new-ish, or at least not well known, practice at the time.
Yeah and it’s very useful, looks like this place is just as bad with the kids as that other place.
If I want to keep a subscription going I’ll give them the new CC information myself. Like a responsible adult. Hard disagree on the usefullness.
Not sure what point you’re even trying to make about children and Reddit.
Are we really pretending that unsourced imgur screen shots are valid references?
…no? But I guess you’re pretending it’s not? I’m sorry I screenshotted something from the internet that didn’t have the source attached? It must be completely fake then?
Like, what?
I’ll find the source for you if it helps you sleep at night that the veracity of an internet sourced image is from the internet talking about that thing.
Honestly? I just find it amusing how bent out of shape you’re getting over the fact that people don’t like auto renewing subscriptions.
It’s like you work for some scammy subscription service that makes it impossible to cancel or something.
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There are lots of situations you wouldn’t want your service to be cancelled, so it’s a useful feature is all we’re saying. People acting like it’s malice are hilarious and/or children.
And in those situations I will contact the vendor to give them updated information. I don’t find it useful when a free trial I haven’t thought about for three years suddenly charges me several hundred dollars.
Nobody ever said malice, but it’s a service that flies in the face of the whole concept of an expiration date.
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Authorizations are different from CC details.
You can call a bank and cancel an authorization without canceling a card.
By design and commonly accepted on recurring payments. Not even remotely new or connected with OnStar.
I don’t pay for OnStar but the dealership MAKES you set it up even if you don’t use it.
I have never heard that. When did they start doing that?
Weirded my TF out to say the least.
Honestly that shouldn’t weird you out too much, that’s just a convenience feature. And yeah, I know, some people put quotes around the word convenience. But others actually just use the word as is, a convenience.
What should freak the hell out of you is when you and your significant other are in the car talking about buying a new pair of tennis shoes, and then that evening when you’re sitting at home YouTube shows you a commercial for tennis shoes, when you’ve never seen any ads for tennis shoes on YouTube before.
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That sounds awfully convenient and OnStar saves lives, so…
The emergency features are free, they want you to pay for in-car wifi. You also cannot cancel online and have to cancel with a rep over the phone. The service itself is fine, but dealerships requiring you to sign up “even if you aren’t going to use it” isn’t .
Oh really?
One of the most expensive plans comes from OnStar, which charges $29.99 a month or $299.90 a year for its Safety & Security Plan after a free trial period. It’s the least expensive OnStar plan that includes automatic crash notification, which it calls Automatic Crash Response. OnStar says these subscription fees are necessary to pay for the resources used to operate the feature.
“Certain features and services, including Automatic Crash Response, require ongoing updates, network connectivity, staffed call centers, among other recurring costs to operate,” an OnStar spokesperson, Rita Kass-Shamoun, told CR.
Thank you for that link and Thank you to Mozilla for doing those tests. I always suspected something like this but it is good to have it tested and in writing.
My only gripe with the article is this:
All of the car brands on this list except for Tesla, Renault, and Dacia signed on to a list of Consumer Protection Principles from the US automotive industry group ALLIANCE FOR AUTOMOTIVE INNOVATION, INC.
Renault and Dacia aren’t available in the US, so there is really no need for them to sign those principles. Which makes Tesla the only one where this is relevant.
Wasn’t the next line that this agreement they all signed was just something they made up and don’t actually follow and no one enforces?
Oh cool! So cars will be free now since the manufacturers are turning drivers into the product. Right? Right guys? Cars will be free?
They will be CaaS
Didn’t Tesla and others already try this (and will probably keep pushing it)?
Things like monthly subscriptions for various car features working like seat warmers.
Tesla has some upgrades for a one time fee - like rear seat heaters and acceleration boost, and subscription ones - premium connectivity
You’re thinking of BMW for the heated seats: https://www.theverge.com/2022/7/12/23204950/bmw-subscriptions-microtransactions-heated-seats-feature
And Toyota for being able to remote start your car with your keyfob. https://www.theverge.com/2021/12/12/22831105/toyota-subscription-remote-start-key-fob Which they later walked back when a lot of their customers pushed back on it: https://www.thedrive.com/tech/43636/toyota-reviewing-key-fob-remote-start-subscription-plan-after-massive-blowback
That would be rentals
Or a lease
US needs to regulate how data is collected by all companies. This shit is just gross. Is this perhaps one of the reasons why right to repair is opposed so strongly across industries? In addition to selling overpriced manufacturer repair they don’t want us to cripple one of their revenue streams.
From what I understand, right to repair would give consumers and independent repair shops the ability to repair their items and grant them access to schematics/repair manuals, specialty tools, and parts.
In theory, this should make it easier to develop aftermarket parts. And for electronics and software, be able to develop drop in replacements, flash aftermarket hardware, and that function of the car should still work.
In this case car manufacturers don’t want people to rip out their embedded spyware and thus uncouple them from using their data collecting phone apps.
Currently aware of at least one report of a couple of car manufacturers backing some astroturfing groups to oppose right to repair [1]
[1] https://www.ifixit.com/News/80635/car-companies-are-astroturfing-right-to-repair
This is definitely an off-topic, but the problem with repairs is that no one really needs them and repair support is very expensive. People are used to simply change phones every two years and change cars every 3-4 years. This is a very different market from a few decades back.
When device turn-around is so fast, most devices won’t break until their “end-of-life” of 2-3-4 years. It is better to simply offer a buy back scheme and recycle components into new phones, cars, etc. This is what consumers want and this is what companies are doing. Basically companies are doing two things: production and recycling.
This is different from days long gone when people used to buy a radio and then use it for over a decade. The business model in such climate was: production and repair. Repair requires specialty tooling and spare components and you can earn money on them. But if majority of your customers never repair anything, investment into repair will be a huge waste.
So, companies don’t like Right To Repair because it’s expensive for them. If it’s expensive, there are only two solutions: increase the prices of goods (and no one likes that, not companies, not consumers) or stop recycling and force everyone to repair (which most consumers don’t want and is an additional stress for companies).
Consumer attitudes should change for repairs to become a good option. It’s like people crying about lack of headphone jacks on the internet. Reality though? 99% of billions of people give ZERO SHIT. If people really wanted headphone jacks, they would stop buying new phones en masse and jacks would be back in days.
And it’s the same about privacy, micro-transactions, etc. No one is forcing you to play a game with micro-transactions, but most people do AND, most importantly, USE these micro-transactions. If they wouldn’t there would be no crap in the games.
What kind of fantasy land do you live in that people replace their phone every two years and car every 3 years? You might as well lease a car if you are replacing it that fast.
This might be anecdotally true in your circle but if it was true for the market at large then every manufacturer wouldn’t be forecasting major downturns in smartphone sales and the used car market wouldn’t be so far upside down as there would be a glut of supply from people selling their used car every 3 years.
I think your points about privacy features, micro transactions, and headphone jacks are valid but I think it’s a stretch to apply that to cellphones and cars and say that companies are against right to repair because of consumer attitudes. My observation is that the companies (ie John Deere) that have opposed right to repair are about protecting revenue streams from part sales and franchising/licensing fees and decreasing support costs from having to service products with non-genuine parts.
Don’t you just love the digital age? -_-
yeah idk why all electrical appliances need to be smart, didn’t even want that in the first place
I have to be smart so that they can spy on you. Duh!
/s
And now LG wants to sell you a subscription on top of that 💀
Yes. I live in a cold climate. I can remotely start my car with my phone and it’s defrosted and heated before I drive. It’s awesome. And then I get exact directions that re-route me based on traffic conditions. The efficiency gains are incredible. I love technology.
I understand your point, but they could also just make it more privacy friendly to the consumer. We don’t want to feel like we’re being used against our will even if we “agreed” to the terms of service.
I drive 25 years old car. It was pretty expensive when it was new so it has all the features I care about. I will not buy a new car until I’m forced to. Also the option to just turn on seats heating without having to pay monthly is quite a bonus.
Absolutely. My 2006 car is in the shop right now getting fixed and will ultimately end up costing me around $3.5k. They were a bit surprised I told them to fix it, but I don’t WANT a new car. I like my car, it has all the features I want, is a manual, doesn’t connect to the internet, and most importantly, has physical buttons and dials to control everything! Overall it’s in great condition as well.
I love my car, and like you will be keeping it until it becomes prohibitively expensive to repair vs buy something else, or I can no longer get parts. Hopefully by then something will be done about the privacy and touchscreen situations.
I love my car, and like you will be keeping it until it becomes prohibitively expensive to repair vs buy something else, or I can no longer get parts.
I fully intend to keep my old cars going even past that point.
Does this apply to European cars as well? Do we need to start filing GDPR complaints against car manufacturers?
Hopefully, it will apply to anything with internet connectivity and your personal data.
I’m over here in my wife’s Hyundai smoking weed, having unprotected sex and drinking hard liquor. I can’t wait for my targeted ads. Served to me on my prison issued JPay translucent tablet. Thank god for technology.
Omg black mirror
Why is Mozilla consumer reports
They keep it pretty narrow, their focus has always been very heavy in privacy. They don’t report on anything else really, just the privacy aspect.
Somebody had to take up the mantle since Consumer Reports cannot be trusted anymore
Best way to sell a browser and software services built on privacy is to do a lot of consumer reports emphasizing the value of privacy.
This is what bothers me about Mozilla. They position themselves in the privacy space, but thus far their efforts there have not been shown in their actual browser, and only in what I would call clever “green washing” or “privacy washing”. That is why things like Mullvad browser have a market, because the people who actually care about privacy and have spent time to look at what Firefox actually provides in that respect, are not particularly impressed with their “privacy” stance being realized in their product. While I applaud Mozilla for putting this article out there, as it is beneficial to raise awareness about this issue, I wish they would put as much effort into the actual privacy of Firefox as they do in their marketing around it.
Because when you’re big enough to have a recognizable brand name, it nearly unequivocally means you have to sell out to those who can fund you. Consumer Reports dropped off decades ago.
ctrl+f “volvo”
Not listed, so you know what that means! Great result via omission! Looks like my loved ones are all good then!
Same with Mazda!
Could you technically not have penisary contact with her volvo?
Wish I had the money to even be able to drive one of these nightmare cars in the first place. Yay for being poor I guess!
Oh good, a petition.
I have not read it yet, but do they have any countermeasures people can take?
My car is from last decade, but I was able to remove its OnStar equivalent phone/internet connection by unplugging a box. I just had to do a little research and find out that the cellular device was in a little box you can disconnect, and where that was located.
As far as I know that has it disconnected from any data-uploading ability. Not sure what data it might be gathering but it can’t send it anywhere.
I assume this can only be collected when connecting your phone plus the app to the vehicle? You lose a lot of functionality if you don’t, but at least it would keep your data private?
Most cars have a mobile antenna that connects to a cellular network to send/receive data, they can access it whenever they want but they want you to pay their overhead so they offer the phone app with the remote control options as incentive to cover their costs of collecting your data and as an added bonus to their profit.
Edit: It should be noted that the phone app also allows for even more information collection that they can sell for yet greater profit.
Many cars connect to the internet via cell, even if the owners didn’t specifically pay for that, and many times it can’t be disabled.
It’s days like today where I’m glad Infiniti hasn’t updated their shit since 2014.
