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Freakonomics did an episode not too long ago with the new CEO of Ford. The guy was practically salivating at the mouth about all the data new vehicles will be c

by ja1215 8y ago

Freakonomics did an episode not too long ago with the new CEO of Ford. The guy was practically salivating at the mouth about all the data new vehicles will be collecting and how Ford could potentially monetize it all. Scary times ahead.

wesd 8y ago
I submitted that article on HN but it didn't get any attraction. It seems Ford CEO thinks they can collect and monetize drivers data: -- So the case I would make is that we have as much data in the future coming from vehicles, or from users in those vehicles, or from cities talking to those vehicles, as the other competitors that you and I would be talking about that have monetizable attraction. --The issue in the vehicle, see, is: we already know and have data on our customers. By the way, we protect this securely; they trust us. We know what people make. How do we know that? It’s because they borrow money from us. And when you ask somebody what they make, we know where they work; we know if they’re married. We know how long they’ve lived in their house, because these are all on the credit applications. We’ve never ever been challenged on how we use that. And that’s the leverage we’ve got here with the data.
- anitil 8y ago
  Struggling to find this article - could you link me to it?
  - wesd 8y ago
    Can an Industrial Giant Become a Tech Darling? (Ep. 357) http://freakonomics.com/podcast/ford/ http://freakonomics.com/podcast/ford/
    - anitil 8y ago
      Ok listened to it, finally. It really comes across that he doesn't understand what he's talking about around tech. "Transportation Operating System"? It's cargo-culted technobabble. But yes it did veer in to the creepy side there
avgDev 8y ago
It is a smart business move as there is money to be made. Insurance companies did it first by offering dongles that you can plug into your OBDII that would basically feed your driving data back to them. I agree that it is scary and just feels not right. General population is so ignorant these days that most honestly don't care. They will just accept these things. This data will be valuable to insurance companies, government, car manufacturers and who knows how else it could be used. You can literally tell who made a modification to their car and read all the data from the vehicle.....meh, future sucks. One day we will wake up when we have zero freedom, all of our moves will be tracked...and we won't be able to have any privacy at all.
- acct1771 8y ago
  That's a very bad heuristic to use for whether something's a good business decision...

by ja1215 8y ago

wesd 8y ago

I submitted that article on HN but it didn't get any attraction. It seems Ford CEO thinks they can collect and monetize drivers data: -- So the case I would make is that we have as much data in the future coming from vehicles, or from users in those vehicles, or from cities talking to those vehicles, as the other competitors that you and I would be talking about that have monetizable attraction. --The issue in the vehicle, see, is: we already know and have data on our customers. By the way, we protect this securely; they trust us. We know what people make. How do we know that? It’s because they borrow money from us. And when you ask somebody what they make, we know where they work; we know if they’re married. We know how long they’ve lived in their house, because these are all on the credit applications. We’ve never ever been challenged on how we use that. And that’s the leverage we’ve got here with the data.

anitil 8y ago
Struggling to find this article - could you link me to it?
- wesd 8y ago
  Can an Industrial Giant Become a Tech Darling? (Ep. 357) http://freakonomics.com/podcast/ford/ http://freakonomics.com/podcast/ford/
  - anitil 8y ago
    Ok listened to it, finally. It really comes across that he doesn't understand what he's talking about around tech. "Transportation Operating System"? It's cargo-culted technobabble. But yes it did veer in to the creepy side there

avgDev 8y ago

It is a smart business move as there is money to be made. Insurance companies did it first by offering dongles that you can plug into your OBDII that would basically feed your driving data back to them. I agree that it is scary and just feels not right. General population is so ignorant these days that most honestly don't care. They will just accept these things. This data will be valuable to insurance companies, government, car manufacturers and who knows how else it could be used. You can literally tell who made a modification to their car and read all the data from the vehicle.....meh, future sucks. One day we will wake up when we have zero freedom, all of our moves will be tracked...and we won't be able to have any privacy at all.

acct1771 8y ago
That's a very bad heuristic to use for whether something's a good business decision...