Wait, they were sending geo location data to LexusNexus?! That is crazy. If you haven't seen the inside of LexusNexus, it is a stalkers paradise. I got a glimpse when I talked to some guys about helping them with some python automation. Turned out they use LexusNexus to figure out who to buy mineral rights from for fracking nat gas. They gloated how they used deep personal data to do thing like play spouses against each other as they are going through a divorce. I walked away because of basic human values and ethics I feel need to be upheld
LexisNexis owns an app now being rolled out widely by homeowners insurers, named Flyreel. These insurers require its use, and it basically is 4K footage of your property and home interior. I needed to do this due to our insurer leaving the East Coast, it was incredibly invasive and I am still mad about it.
Talk about stalkers paradise!
> advanced property survey solution that provides a breadth of actionable data from the ground, the interior and the sky, then applies AI-driven insights to help U.S. insurance carriers identify, retain and acquire profitable risks – all without having to send someone on site for a physical property inspection.
Back when I was a wee sysadmin helping start a MSP, we had lots of law firms, and I can confirm, despite claims of checks on this, the privacy invading things I saw them do!
Supposedly the checks have actually gotten better, but I'm skeptical.
What the fuck? Is it even legal to access personal datas as deep as the ones you might use to tickle others during a divorce?
edit: this applies only to us (i'm european so i can't ask for my data but i am curios about it): you can request to access the data they have about you here https://consumer.risk.lexisnexis.com/request
if you click on online form instructions they tell you how to correct infos about you as well
I wonder if they keep track of if someone has requested their info from them or not and how they use that to rate that persons risk if they do (does it raise or lower their score?)...
I am having trouble making sense the word "parks" in the title. Is "GM parks" an entity, or is this a mistake and "parks" is just an extra verb in there?
It’s a verb, to park, as in to put something in a particular place and leave it there. Here, it means that they’ve settled the claims, promised to behave in the future, and they’re moving on. It is very awkward and seems impossible to understand without reading more. Maybe it makes more sense to the British.
It does not make more sense to the British, this is just the particular "clever" writing style favoured by The Register. Maybe it was sharp in the 2000s, I can't honestly remember, but these days it makes the site pretty much unreadable for me.
It's a poor choice of words considering GM makes cars, yes in other contexts I would read "parks" as "shelves" or "puts on hold" but even with your explanatory note it took me a couple of reads to figure out what the title actually means
Yea, trying to be funny with target specific references, only to construct a difficult to parse sentence. It's like saying a certain politician would love to couch a certain meme
So basically if I get out of the store not paying I'm going to jail, but big companies when doing crime, they promise they will behave for five years, and then go on, but more openly? And what about people who were victims?
That's not what limited liability is. The point of limited liability is that the investors aren't responsible for the debt if the company goes bankrupt.
> "Respecting our customers’ privacy and earning their trust is deeply important to us," the car maker claimed in a statement Thursday. "Although Smart Driver was created to promote safer driving behavior, we ended that program due to customer feedback."
The stretch and spin on this is pretty insane. I guess it's true if you're forced to do it by a client who you come to care about because they're the federal government and they've named, shamed, and sued you. Yet another reason to continue to avoid American made cars.
"Toyota vehicles could “Alert local authorities if a license plate or other vehicle identifier associated with a suspected vehicle is identified” AKA “Amber Alert Assistance” at first, but later?" https://x.com/SteveMoser/status/1675876541845188611
Setting aside all privacy issues entirely, I'm curious as to the details of the internal approval process (or perhaps lack of process) in GM.
The act itself is obviously customer-hostile, and it's at least fairly obvious that at some point you'll get caught out. So why risk it? It could be a rogue executive, but it could also be that consumers are known to care so little about things like this that the blowback is factorable as a cost of doing business, like the apocryphal Ford fuel tank story. I wonder which is the reality.
Sociopaths are rife in the management levels of most companies. They don't see anything wrong in pushing ethical boundaries they don't hold themselves to.
Well, not just management. Some individual contributor(s) developed the processes and software to implement this, too. Just like there are plenty of execs who think "makes money -> I have no problem with it" without considering ethics, there are plenty of engineers who think "interesting problem -> I'll do it" without considering ethics.
Oh sure, but larger companies are aware of this and usually have systems in place to protect themselves. I would love to know the backstory around this decision.
Readit News
Talk about stalkers paradise!
https://risk.lexisnexis.com/products/flyreelDepending on the amount of information, you'll received a report that can be several hundred pages.
It's crazy how much data they have on most people.
Supposedly the checks have actually gotten better, but I'm skeptical.
edit: this applies only to us (i'm european so i can't ask for my data but i am curios about it): you can request to access the data they have about you here https://consumer.risk.lexisnexis.com/request
if you click on online form instructions they tell you how to correct infos about you as well
What they mean is, they parked it, like a car, put a stop to, ceased movement.
What is happening here is impunity.
Will that get removed? Because those people's rates are affected.
The stretch and spin on this is pretty insane. I guess it's true if you're forced to do it by a client who you come to care about because they're the federal government and they've named, shamed, and sued you. Yet another reason to continue to avoid American made cars.
The act itself is obviously customer-hostile, and it's at least fairly obvious that at some point you'll get caught out. So why risk it? It could be a rogue executive, but it could also be that consumers are known to care so little about things like this that the blowback is factorable as a cost of doing business, like the apocryphal Ford fuel tank story. I wonder which is the reality.