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Everyone knows your location: tracking myself down through in-app ads

(timsh.org)
1957 points apokryptein | 7 comments | 02 Feb 25 17:07 UTC | HN request time: 1.013s | source | bottom
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everdrive ◴[02 Feb 25 18:45 UTC] No.42910717[source]▶
I'm really happy to see this level of detail and research. So many privacy-related articles either wholly lack in technical skill, or hysterically cannot differentiate between different levels of privacy concerns and risks.

People commonly point to Mozilla's research regarding vehicle's privacy policies. (https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/blog/privacy-nightmare-on-...) But that research only states what the car company's lawyers felt they must include in their privacy policies. These policies imply (and I'm sure, correctly imply) that your conversations will be recorded when you're in the vehicle. But, they never drill down into the real technical details. For instance ..... are car companies recording you the whole time and streaming ALL of your audio from ALL of your driving? Are they just recording you at a random samples? Are they ONLY recording you when you're issuing voice commands, and the lawyers are simply hedging their bets regarding what sort of data _might_ come through accidentally during those instances? Once they record you, where is the data stored, and for how long? Is it sent to 3rd parties, etc? Which of these systems can be disabled, and via what means? Does disabling these systems disable any other functionality of the vehicle, or void its warranty? Lastly, does your insurance shoot up if you have a car without one of these systems? etc ...

The list of questions could go almost indefinitely, and presumably, would vary strongly across manufacturers. So much of the privacy news out there is nothing but scary and often not very substantiated worst case scenarios. Without the details and means to improve privacy, all these stories can do is spread cynicism. I'm really glad to see this level of discourse for the author.

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1. AdieuToLogic ◴[03 Feb 25 01:37 UTC] No.42913968[source]▶
> Lastly, does your insurance shoot up if you have a car without one of these systems?

This question I can answer with a reasonable degree of certainty; no, it does not.

Insurance companies increase rates for automobile coverage for many reasons, real or illusionary. But "does your insurance shoot up" strictly for not having a recording device in a vehicle is not one of them.

Do some insurance companies charge less when provided access to policy owner driving patterns which the companies infer reduce their risk? Sure.

But that is a different question.

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2. sfink ◴[03 Feb 25 05:14 UTC] No.42915205[source]▶
> Do some insurance companies charge less when provided access to policy owner driving patterns which the companies infer reduce their risk? Sure.

> But that is a different question.

In what way? A discount for allowing surveillance is identical to an extra charge for disallowing it. They're identical, unless the "base" rate is set externally somehow.

$5 for lemonade, $3 off if you skip the lemon == $2 for sugar water, $3 extra to add lemon.

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3. AdieuToLogic ◴[03 Feb 25 05:24 UTC] No.42915245[source]▶
>> Do some insurance companies charge less when provided access to policy owner driving patterns which the companies infer reduce their risk? Sure.

>> But that is a different question.

> In what way? A discount for allowing surveillance is identical to an extra charge for disallowing it.

In this case, the discount is "opt-in."

> $5 for lemonade, $3 off if you skip the lemon == $2 for sugar water, $3 extra to add lemon.

I believe a better analogy is:

  The drink costs $5.  If you don't want lemon in it,
  we'll knock off $3.  Those are your options.
replies(1): >>42921303 #
4. naniwaduni ◴[03 Feb 25 08:25 UTC] No.42916110[source]▶
Defaults matter.
5. robertlagrant ◴[03 Feb 25 12:58 UTC] No.42917758[source]▶
> A discount for allowing surveillance is identical to an extra charge for disallowing it.

I don't think this is necessarily true. You're right that there's an unknown base rate, but that means you can't say what you're saying as well. And if you have other companies that offer non-driving-pattern policies as well, and they're a similar price, you can see it's a discount not an added cost.

In fact, regardless, other companies are your best bet in combatting rising prices for any reason.

replies(1): >>42921421 #
6. sfink ◴[03 Feb 25 18:38 UTC] No.42921303{3}[source]▶
That "better" analogy is a restatement of "$5 for lemonade, $3 off if you skip the lemon."

> In this case, the discount is "opt-in."

The base price is not a force of nature. $5 with the option to opt-in to a $3 discount sounds great, until you realize that just a month ago the price was $2 by default. They raised the default by $3, but allowed you to opt-out of that increase. Whether you label that "opt-in" [to the discount] or "opt-out" [from the increase], you end up in exactly the same place.

7. sfink ◴[03 Feb 25 18:50 UTC] No.42921421{3}[source]▶
Yes. That is what "...unless the base rate is set externally somehow" means.

It is different initially, when only one company is offering the "discount" and they have not yet adjusted their base price upward. In fact, the people who want the discount will presumably flock to their service, which may even mean they won't raise the base price all the way up if it makes their costs lower. But if that works, the other companies will follow suit.

In short: there's a period of time when there's a difference, and you have a real choice. If the difference is real, it will get locked in to the entire industry. It's a positive economic profit, and those go away.

cf https://robert.ocallahan.org/2014/08/choose-firefox-now-or-l...