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Is this something I'm supposed to feel outraged about? Amazon refused to give me an EC2 instance with 2GB of RAM because I only paid for 1GB. Microsoft refused

Is this something I'm supposed to feel outraged about? Amazon refused to give me an EC2 instance with 2GB of RAM because I only paid for 1GB. Microsoft refused to give me 1 hour response times because I only paid for 24 hour response. Google refused to let me use Gmail with my own domain name because I didn't pay for Gmail for Business. Nest won't show me what happened on my camera five days ago because I only pay them to store that data for three days. If Honda offers a service that lets you track your car and you choose not to pay for the service that lets you track your car, you should expect that Honda will not let you use that service for free. And we should all be especially glad that they didn't provide the information to law enforcement without a warrant. There is a provision in the legal system for law enforcement to infringe on your right to privacy, and it's called a warrant and has to be authorized by a judge. This is one of the core tenants of many Western justice systems. This seems like a complete non-story. "Man didn't pay for service, company refused to provide said service for free". Kinda loses the punch there, doesn't it?

beepbopboopboop 7y ago
access to car tracking is a human right
devtul 7y ago
News today seems like an outrage business, an editor skill can be measured on how he or she can turn some inane happening into a blood-boiling title.
beerandt 7y ago
If we were talking a private eye, yes. But is there any precedent for charging the police to collect extant evidence? (Assuming a warrant is actually presented.) I honestly don't know.
- jpollock 7y ago
  From the article: Honda Canada spokesperson: "Without an active subscription, the police would have to present a warrant to activate the location services on the vehicle and no such warrant was provided. At no time was Honda or its HondaLink provider aware of the location of this vehicle."
  - beerandt 7y ago
    Right, but as a matter of business policy. I'm speaking as a matter of legal precedent. (Which may be applicable in this case, just not explicitly stated.) Top level comment suggested a right to charge for costs incurred, irrespective of having a warrant.
    - freehunter 7y ago
      If you interpreted my comment that way I apologize, but that's not what I said. I said the owner could pay for the service OR the police could get a warrant. In no way was I attempting to suggest the police need a warrant AND still have to pay.
      - beerandt 7y ago
        Apologies, I see that now. I read it as speaking on a right to be paid for services rendered, which I don't disagree with. Although I'm still curious as to any case law.
Glyptodon 7y ago
I think it is a bit different. While requiring a warrant from law enforcement is likely correct, refusing to give the owner the information necessary to track a signal from their own property is wrong. The owner of property should have a right to the information necessary to access a signal emitted by their own property. A situation where an owner does not have that right is essentially claiming that the device is leased rather than owned. (Of course Honda wouldn't want this because then they'd have to compete with other providers for connected car services. Instead they wish to maintain a monopoly over Honda owners who may only choose between their service and no service.)
- whoisjuan 7y ago
  "A situation where an owner does not have that right is essentially claiming that the device is leased rather than owned." Owning the device is not the same as having a service that enables the device. Especially when it is a device that relies on third-party networks. There's a cost in that. That's like saying that Apple needs to give me data to use my iPhone just because I own the iPhone and I pay them for it. Those are separate concepts. Honda can totally deny the customer access to the data associated with this service. The way I see it there are two possibilities here: 1) He reports that his car was stolen to law-enforcement and they, within the scope of their duties, can go and ask Honda to release this information. That's fair. 2) He contacts Honda saying that his car was stolen and that he already reported this to the police. He asks for the location data because he wants to know where is the car now. He doesn't want to wait for the police to do their job. They deny it because he doesn't pay for this service. They will, however, honor the situation described in #1. That's also fair.
  - Glyptodon 7y ago
    No, it's like saying Apple needs to give me the information required to use a phone with a network/MVNO of my choosing, rather than Apple saying "we'll pretend your phone doesn't exist unless you buy an ATT subscription." Edit: your comment got updated. I agree Honda can deny access to the data, but they shouldn't be able to deny the information needed to interface with his car via a 3rd party system instead.
drivetothedump 7y ago
According to the article, “Ablhd told Global News that he wasn't briefed on the service when he purchased the vehicle, which he says he would have sprung for had it been offered.” Even if that’s no true, he still payed many thousands of dollars for a vehicle, which has GPS tracking capability, which was seemingly always active, considering they told the police they knew where the car was located, but told them to pound sand because they didn’t pay an exorbitant price for a service that likely costs Honda basically nothing to run.
- freehunter 7y ago
  I paid for my EC2 instance and Amazon has access to petabytes of RAM at no extra cost, why can't they give me another GB for free? He paid for a car, he didn't pay for the GPS tracking. Simple as that.
  - drivetothedump 7y ago
    You own your car, whereas you rent your servers.
    - freehunter 7y ago
      You own your car but do you own every service your car is capable of? Your car is capable of picking up signals from SiriusXM radio, should that be free too? Your car has a 4G connection built in, should it allow unlimited data for free? My sister's minivan has screens in the back seats with a Netflix app, should Honda give every car a free Netflix subscription? You own your car but you rent the GPS tracking service. This person chose not to rent that service and therefor is not entitled to the benefits of it.
      - drivetothedump 7y ago
        Manufacturers should start implementing subscription models for functions like AC because they’ve added smart controls and those have server costs associated with them.
- 7y ago
frosted-flakes 7y ago
tenant -> tenet
mywacaday 7y ago
There are worse examples http://www.nbcnews.com/id/39516346/ns/us_news-life/t/no-pay-no-spray-firefighters-let-home-burn/ http://www.nbcnews.com/id/39516346/ns/us_news-life/t/no-pay-...
belorn 7y ago
If this had been in EU then the owner could have requested the information under GDPR, as the tracking data is private information connected to the person. Honda do not have a service where if you pay them they will track your car. Honda track car owners, and if you pay them will give you a copy of the data. It is very questionable if user data is owned by the company that do the tracking. How would it look if Facebook withhold evidence that a victim requested in regard to information they themselves uploaded? Personally I found find it rather poor behavior if they extorted the victim before returning the victims personal information. "Man got unknowingly data mined, company refuse to return private information to the victim of an ongoing crime." sounds like a story to me. The key part of the article is that company is now saying that they did not track the car. If Honda never had the information then the argument that "Man didn't pay for service, company did not provide said service" make more sense.
- freehunter 7y ago
  >If this had been in EU But it wasn't, so none of the rest matters.
  - belorn 7y ago
    Is a GDPR request the same as "Amazon refused to give me an EC2 instance with 2GB of RAM because I only paid for 1GB"?
    - freehunter 7y ago
      Are they tracking these cars in the EU? On second thought don't bother answering that because again, this didn't happen in the EU so GDPR means absolutely nothing.
      - belorn 7y ago
        Okey lets not take about GDPR and simply talk about personal data gathered by companies. Is requesting a copy of that data the same as requesting a service without paying for it? And since we are not talking about GDPR, who owns the personal data gathered by a company. The company or the person. Is there any argument in favor of the person having a right to access that data without paying?

beepbopboopboop 7y ago

access to car tracking is a human right

devtul 7y ago

News today seems like an outrage business, an editor skill can be measured on how he or she can turn some inane happening into a blood-boiling title.

beerandt 7y ago

If we were talking a private eye, yes. But is there any precedent for charging the police to collect extant evidence? (Assuming a warrant is actually presented.) I honestly don't know.

jpollock 7y ago
From the article: Honda Canada spokesperson: "Without an active subscription, the police would have to present a warrant to activate the location services on the vehicle and no such warrant was provided. At no time was Honda or its HondaLink provider aware of the location of this vehicle."
- beerandt 7y ago
  Right, but as a matter of business policy. I'm speaking as a matter of legal precedent. (Which may be applicable in this case, just not explicitly stated.) Top level comment suggested a right to charge for costs incurred, irrespective of having a warrant.
  - freehunter 7y ago
    If you interpreted my comment that way I apologize, but that's not what I said. I said the owner could pay for the service OR the police could get a warrant. In no way was I attempting to suggest the police need a warrant AND still have to pay.
    - beerandt 7y ago
      Apologies, I see that now. I read it as speaking on a right to be paid for services rendered, which I don't disagree with. Although I'm still curious as to any case law.

Glyptodon 7y ago

I think it is a bit different. While requiring a warrant from law enforcement is likely correct, refusing to give the owner the information necessary to track a signal from their own property is wrong. The owner of property should have a right to the information necessary to access a signal emitted by their own property. A situation where an owner does not have that right is essentially claiming that the device is leased rather than owned. (Of course Honda wouldn't want this because then they'd have to compete with other providers for connected car services. Instead they wish to maintain a monopoly over Honda owners who may only choose between their service and no service.)

whoisjuan 7y ago
"A situation where an owner does not have that right is essentially claiming that the device is leased rather than owned." Owning the device is not the same as having a service that enables the device. Especially when it is a device that relies on third-party networks. There's a cost in that. That's like saying that Apple needs to give me data to use my iPhone just because I own the iPhone and I pay them for it. Those are separate concepts. Honda can totally deny the customer access to the data associated with this service. The way I see it there are two possibilities here: 1) He reports that his car was stolen to law-enforcement and they, within the scope of their duties, can go and ask Honda to release this information. That's fair. 2) He contacts Honda saying that his car was stolen and that he already reported this to the police. He asks for the location data because he wants to know where is the car now. He doesn't want to wait for the police to do their job. They deny it because he doesn't pay for this service. They will, however, honor the situation described in #1. That's also fair.
- Glyptodon 7y ago
  No, it's like saying Apple needs to give me the information required to use a phone with a network/MVNO of my choosing, rather than Apple saying "we'll pretend your phone doesn't exist unless you buy an ATT subscription." Edit: your comment got updated. I agree Honda can deny access to the data, but they shouldn't be able to deny the information needed to interface with his car via a 3rd party system instead.

drivetothedump 7y ago

According to the article, “Ablhd told Global News that he wasn't briefed on the service when he purchased the vehicle, which he says he would have sprung for had it been offered.” Even if that’s no true, he still payed many thousands of dollars for a vehicle, which has GPS tracking capability, which was seemingly always active, considering they told the police they knew where the car was located, but told them to pound sand because they didn’t pay an exorbitant price for a service that likely costs Honda basically nothing to run.

freehunter 7y ago
I paid for my EC2 instance and Amazon has access to petabytes of RAM at no extra cost, why can't they give me another GB for free? He paid for a car, he didn't pay for the GPS tracking. Simple as that.
- drivetothedump 7y ago
  You own your car, whereas you rent your servers.
  - freehunter 7y ago
    You own your car but do you own every service your car is capable of? Your car is capable of picking up signals from SiriusXM radio, should that be free too? Your car has a 4G connection built in, should it allow unlimited data for free? My sister's minivan has screens in the back seats with a Netflix app, should Honda give every car a free Netflix subscription? You own your car but you rent the GPS tracking service. This person chose not to rent that service and therefor is not entitled to the benefits of it.
    - drivetothedump 7y ago
      Manufacturers should start implementing subscription models for functions like AC because they’ve added smart controls and those have server costs associated with them.
7y ago

frosted-flakes 7y ago

tenant -> tenet

mywacaday 7y ago

There are worse examples http://www.nbcnews.com/id/39516346/ns/us_news-life/t/no-pay-no-spray-firefighters-let-home-burn/ http://www.nbcnews.com/id/39516346/ns/us_news-life/t/no-pay-...

belorn 7y ago

If this had been in EU then the owner could have requested the information under GDPR, as the tracking data is private information connected to the person. Honda do not have a service where if you pay them they will track your car. Honda track car owners, and if you pay them will give you a copy of the data. It is very questionable if user data is owned by the company that do the tracking. How would it look if Facebook withhold evidence that a victim requested in regard to information they themselves uploaded? Personally I found find it rather poor behavior if they extorted the victim before returning the victims personal information. "Man got unknowingly data mined, company refuse to return private information to the victim of an ongoing crime." sounds like a story to me. The key part of the article is that company is now saying that they did not track the car. If Honda never had the information then the argument that "Man didn't pay for service, company did not provide said service" make more sense.

freehunter 7y ago
>If this had been in EU But it wasn't, so none of the rest matters.
- belorn 7y ago
  Is a GDPR request the same as "Amazon refused to give me an EC2 instance with 2GB of RAM because I only paid for 1GB"?
  - freehunter 7y ago
    Are they tracking these cars in the EU? On second thought don't bother answering that because again, this didn't happen in the EU so GDPR means absolutely nothing.
    - belorn 7y ago
      Okey lets not take about GDPR and simply talk about personal data gathered by companies. Is requesting a copy of that data the same as requesting a service without paying for it? And since we are not talking about GDPR, who owns the personal data gathered by a company. The company or the person. Is there any argument in favor of the person having a right to access that data without paying?