Onstar Terms Amendment***

[IBM]

Originally Posted by liquidsmoke

You don't have to be hiding anything to not want someone stalking you.

They aren't going to stalk you for no reason. They have better things to do with their time. People are so paranoid for no reason.

[Mr. Wyndham]

Originally Posted by liquidsmoke

Just saw this article on wired about how onstar continues to track your car even after you cancel the service.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/201...ar-tracks-you/

This is bs and should be illegal.

What makes them think they have the right to do this. They don't own the gps chip in my car. They run a service and when that service is over they shouldn't be allowed to continue to track you and then sell this tracking data to whoever wants it.
The article says you can call them and opt out but that's bullshit too. The vast majority of people won't even know they need to opt out.

Nice job GM. I will promptly be looking in the DIY section on how to remove the onstar modual, because I seriously doubt they will actually stop tracking you if you request. After all there is no way to prove they did or didn't.

Merged threads...

Not illegal. They WILL stop monitoring your heartbeat and brainwaves if you simply call up and tell them to stop. It's right in the amendment.

/Crisis Averted.

[liquidsmoke]

Originally Posted by IBM

They aren't going to stalk you for no reason. They have better things to do with their time. People are so paranoid for no reason.

No they aren't doing it for no reason. They have a reason. Money.
Plain and simple.

They are going to sell your location data to anyone who wants it. And it will be very trivial to find out who the actual person is in the data.

And it isn't paranoia if they are following you.

[IBM]

If you're really that paranoid, yes i'm still calling it paranoia, then just disconnect it. The majority of people, however, aren't going to really care, it's not that big of a deal. .

[Blue17CamaroZL1]

So this means you don't have a cell phone either, correct??? They can track your GPS location with that as well.

[Mr. Wyndham]

Originally Posted by liquidsmoke

They are going to sell your location data to anyone who wants it.

You're misrepresenting the facts with this comment.

[DietCoke]

Originally Posted by Dragoneye

You MIGHT BE misrepresenting the facts with this comment.

Fixed

[Mr. Wyndham]

Originally Posted by DietCoke

Fixed

Now you're misrepresenting my comment about misrepresenting.

Not fixed...sugar-coated.

[liquidsmoke]

How is that misrepresenting the facts. Please explain.

[Mr. Wyndham]

Originally Posted by liquidsmoke

How is that misrepresenting the facts. Please explain.

Excerpt from the privacy policy amendment posted earlier in the original thread:

We have added to the amended Terms and Conditions more detailed information about the information we collect about you and about your Vehicle, including how we collect your information, what we do with it and how we share it. For example, unless the Data Connection in your Vehicle is deactivated, information about your Vehicle may continue to be collected even if you do not have Service. In addition to other purposes set out in the prior version of the Privacy Statement, we may use the information we collect about you and your Vehicle to improve the quality of our Service and offerings and may share the information we collect with law enforcement or other public safety officials, credit card processors, and/or third parties we contract with who conduct joint marketing initiatives with OnStar.

In the bold, you'll find exactly who they share information with. This is not "anybody who wants it". And they aren't selling it, either - they're sharing it to pertinent partners/authorities.

As I mentioned earlier - this doesn't mean they're going to go giving out your address or location of your car to the highest-bidding advertising company. The worst possible mention in the bold is the third-party marketing people. But guess what?? Since companies like GM and OnStar don't do their own advertising, the groups they contract with are usually bound to Non-Disclosure Agreements and only given what's absolutely necessary to market their business (such as number of calls, miles driven, etc...)

So...misrepresenting the facts, because they aren't selling - nor are they giving it to "anyone who wants it".

[liquidsmoke]

Doesn't 3rd party we contract with pretty much mean, anyone who gives us money.
No they aren't going to sell individual data for one user, but it's not hard to find out who any single user is with the data. But the bottom line is, they are saying they can do anything with the data they want, including sharing(selling) it to anyone the feel like.
Just cuz they say, oh we are only going to share it with our friends. How is that any different or better.
And when does any company share anything with another company who isn't also sharing some money?

[Brokinarrow]

"and/or third parties we contract with who conduct joint marketing initiatives with OnStar."

THAT is the part that is disturbing to me.

[Mr. Wyndham]

Originally Posted by liquidsmoke

Doesn't 3rd party we contract with pretty much mean, anyone who gives us money.

No. It doesn't. Read it again, in full, please:

"Third parties we contract with who conduct joint marketing initiatives with OnStar". This would include GM...who already has your information anyways...

Originally Posted by liquidsmoke

No they aren't going to sell individual data for one user, but it's not hard to find out who any single user is with the data. But the bottom line is, they are saying they can do anything with the data they want, including sharing(selling) it to anyone the feel like.

No, you're drawing that bottom line to support your uneasiness with this policy alteration....nothing has really changed - they've added step to blinding them, and they're expanding their business. That's the bottom line.

Originally Posted by liquidsmoke

Just cuz they say, oh we are only going to share it with our friends. How is that any different or better. And when does any company share anything with another company who isn't also sharing some money?

I don't understand what you're asking here...

[liquidsmoke]

And even if we give them the benefit of the doubt and say hypothetically Onstar will respect your privacy and not just sell the data to anyone who asks for it.
I still have a problem with them tracking people who don't pay for the service.
Even if in some alternate universe they have good intentions. It's still a bad idea to have all that data stolen from unsuspecting people sitting somewhere just waiting for someone to hack there severs or some employee stealing the data and doing whatever with it. And that is the more likely situation of how publicly the data will end up in bad hands.
Behind closed doors, who knows what they are doing with it.
People break the rules. How do you think bad things happen.