antipaucity

Shared a TechCrunch story recently in a G+ group I’m in on Volvo debuting a new service to upload live traffic data from its vehicles to be sent to other Volvos so they can avoid problem areas.

Or…a self-built and -hosted Waze.

You may recall that I wrote some about these kinds of things starting back in 2010.

Why, exactly, Volvo thinks it not only should do this, but expects its customers to want the manufacturer to be doing this is something I don’t understand right now.

Sure, it’s an interesting technical challenge – but it’s not exactly novel…except in the sense of the vehicle doing this for you instead of you doing it via some mobile app or other.

If this is something drivers must opt-in to use, that’s OK. If you can opt-out, it’s OK, too.

But if it’s not optional – this is a major privacy concern: one I’m sure many people would do without even stopping to take a breath, but a major privacy concern nonetheless.

Also published on Medium.