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Get a German car. Privacy is taken extremely seriously here in Germany. In all walks of life. Companies, schools, doctor‘s offices, etc. Edit: I wouldn’t want

Get a German car. Privacy is taken extremely seriously here in Germany. In all walks of life. Companies, schools, doctor‘s offices, etc. Edit: I wouldn’t want to touch a Tesla even if it was gifted to me. Seeing the founder behave the way he does (latest incident: Changing Twitter’s logo to a shitcoins image) makes him extremely unsympathetic to me.

barbazoo 4y ago
Is that true for cars made for markets that are not Germany? It's not that German car makers are inherently more ethical so I'd assume they do whatever they can get away with in whatever jurisdictions they sell their cars.
- dgellow 4y ago
  Yeah, German car manufacturers aren’t known for their great sense of ethics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal
- rsynnott 4y ago
  The issue with Tesla is _presumably_ not that they decided to make this available to employees out of sheer evil, but that they made it unavailable through negligence or incompetence. If they went into it thinking “this has to comply with (the rather strict German interpretation of) the GDPR”, this would be less likely to happen.
dieselgate 4y ago
Tesla motors was incorporated/founded by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning and not Musk
- ALittleLight 4y ago
  Eberhard sued Musk challenging his right to call himself a founder and the case resolved such that Musk gets to keep calling himself a founder. Musk was a major source of funding early on, putting in about 6 million out of a 7 million dollar raise, served as chairman of the board, headed product design for the Roadster, and took over as CEO before they launched the Roadster. Tesla publicly acknowledges him as a founder. The founder title is one that a company gives to individuals crucial in the early formation of the company. Musk clearly qualifies. I'm saying all this because I think it's very lame that Musk critics try to say he's not a founder of Tesla. Hate Musk all you want, just use real criticism and not this sophomoric "he's not a Tesla founder" stuff.
  - hgsgm 4y ago
    Yes, Musk bought the Founder title from Eberhard. In some countries, "moral rights" ban the practice of buying and selling the right to change facts like authorship.
    - LightBug1 4y ago
      "buying and selling the right to change facts like authorship"... That line made me shiver with disgust... good for those countries.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - ALittleLight 4y ago
      You're allowing your personal feelings for Musk to interfere with facts. Musk provided money, design, and leadership at critical early stages of the company. He's obviously a founder and you are simply wrong for disputing that.
      - now__what 4y ago
        It sounds like he was an influential early investor, but the situation you've described isn't what I would typically think of as "founding" a company. I'm surely not alone in this, thus the present debate. This isn't to diminish Musk's huge influence either; but folks tend not to love when the meanings of words are changed for PR.
        ALittleLight 4y ago
        [flagged]
        kingboss 4y ago
        Musk was not a founder. He might have been an early investor but he didn't found the company. Stop lying with your fucking propaganda. I hope Musk bought you a pony for your bullshit. You are a musk shill. Stop trying to rewrite history you shill.
jacquesm 4y ago
> Privacy is taken extremely seriously here in Germany. On paper. But there are plenty of examples of companies doing things that they shouldn't be doing.
- bhelkey 4y ago
  Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. The important question is: what would the consequences be to a German car manufacturer given similar circumstances?
  - jacquesm 4y ago
    German regulators are notoriously understaffed, see 'Wirecard'. I would not be surprised if there were no consequences at all until it hit the press or someone in a position of power was embarrassed.
    - bhelkey 4y ago
      > I would not be surprised if there were no consequences at all until it hit the press or someone in a position of power was embarrassed. At which point the Data Protection Authorities (GDPR enforcement) would get involved. They would almost certainly levy a hefty fine against the auto manufacturer.
      - jacquesm 4y ago
        Yes indeed. It's interesting that companies are willing to take these risks, sometimes knowingly.
    - nickff 4y ago
      Missing Wirecard seems to be a product of arrogance and incompetence. Under-staffing could have caused the regulator to overlook the fraud, but the continued obstinacy of the regulators in the face of overwhelming evidence was incompetence. Attempting to prosecute the journalists revealing the fraud was incompetent arrogance.
  - 4y ago
hgsgm 4y ago
Point of information: Doge was a meme before the coin. Dogecoin exists because it was created as a meme coin. Given that point, doge is an avatar of stupidity personified (caninified?) and so is a good fit for Twitter.
- throwaway4837 4y ago
  The coin was created as a joke. However, Dogecoin doesn't have any characteristics of a fake cryptocurrency. The technology is just as sound as Bitcoin's, as it's basically a fork of a fork of a fork with no crazy major changes. Logically, from a technical perspective, you can't think Dogecoin is a joke without also thinking Bitcoin is a joke, unless you disagree with the way Dogecoin changed the block parameters. Bashing it as a "meme" is orthogonal to any technical argument you could make about it.
  - ackfoobar 4y ago
    > Logically, from a technical perspective, you can't think Dogecoin is a joke without also thinking Bitcoin is a joke From a game theory perspective, "being first" is a Schelling point. That makes a huge difference between Dogecoin and Bitcoin.
  - rocqua 4y ago
    The value of crypto coins doesn't come from technology. It comes from faith in the technology. Inherently value is a social thing, and hence some of what underlies it is social too. Big part of that is the stated intent of a cryptocurrency. People can't rally around a joke about dogs as the best way to do money. People might rally around the first, most serious, and rather conservatively developed cryptocurrency though. Or perhaps the one that best allows computation on the blockchain, or the one that has the best track record of preserving privacy.
  - greenthrow 4y ago
    The creator of Dogecoin intended it as a meme and called it stupid. That's just facts, it's not bashing it.
- 4y ago
ChemSpider 4y ago
So you would rather buy a car from one of the "Dieselgate" companies? > Privacy is taken extremely seriously here in Germany. Yes, to the point nothing can get done anymore and e. g. having an outdated, non-digitalized healthcare system. Tesla is doing it wrong. But Germany is also doing it wrong - just on the other extreme.
- ruph123 4y ago
  > Yes, to the point nothing can get done anymore and e. g. having an outdated, non-digitalized healthcare system. The system may be slow and not very digital but it is very much not outdated. As someone who has seen a friend go through a terminal illness and has researched quite a lot about cancer treatments, the care you can get in Germany is top notch. And all that for free (except for hospital bed that you have to pay sometimes if you stay longer than a set amount. Which is about 11EUR if I remember correctly). Yes things can be improved and privacy can be a hurdle but it is not quite a bleak as HN commenters make it out to be. I would take it over having everything beging top notch digital without any regards for privacy like it is in the US. (and often very poor or non-existent non-digital solutions)
- stametseater 4y ago
  > one of the "Dieselgate" companies? There was only one "Dieselgate company", Volkswagen Group. BMW and Mercedes-Benz had nothing to do with it. And yes, I would rather buy a car that cheats on emissions tests than a car which spies on me. That's an easy choice (or would be, if I had any real confidence that VW cars truly don't spy on their users too. Which I don't.)
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - brandonagr2 4y ago
    While Dieselgate refers to VW specifically, there are a lot of companies that have been caught cheating on emissions tests, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_emissions_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_emissions_scandal
huehehue 4y ago
Or buy an old car. Of course there are tradeoffs with efficiency and safety, but I like having a car that's easy to work on and features no telemetry or smart features.
speedgoose 4y ago
I wouldn’t bet on the software security of the German cars nor their mobile apps.
stpe 4y ago
Except you had to register in an app every place you went to, during covid. Nice social profiling that data could provide… say, if another type of party ended up as the ruling one.
kernal 4y ago
>Privacy is taken extremely seriously here in Germany I find this hard to believe considering their numerous lies about their car emissions and the extent they went to cover it up.
- recursive 4y ago
  What's the correlation? Car emissions aren't composed of PII or anything.
  - kernal 4y ago
    The correlation is integrity and honesty. Do you really think these German car companies that lied, cheated and defrauded their customers care about the privacy of your data? That's like asking a criminal if they care about your health.
Danjoe4 4y ago
Hey at least Musk doesn't take things too seriously
m463 4y ago
Do you have more privacy rights if you buy a tesla in germany?
YeBanKo 4y ago
Can you elaborate why German products would be more privacy focused? As a counterpoint, BMW started putting feature behind premium subscriptions couple years ago such as steering wheel. Such micro transactions are really hard to combine with privacy.

barbazoo 4y ago

Is that true for cars made for markets that are not Germany? It's not that German car makers are inherently more ethical so I'd assume they do whatever they can get away with in whatever jurisdictions they sell their cars.

dgellow 4y ago
Yeah, German car manufacturers aren’t known for their great sense of ethics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal
rsynnott 4y ago
The issue with Tesla is _presumably_ not that they decided to make this available to employees out of sheer evil, but that they made it unavailable through negligence or incompetence. If they went into it thinking “this has to comply with (the rather strict German interpretation of) the GDPR”, this would be less likely to happen.

dieselgate 4y ago

Tesla motors was incorporated/founded by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning and not Musk

ALittleLight 4y ago
Eberhard sued Musk challenging his right to call himself a founder and the case resolved such that Musk gets to keep calling himself a founder. Musk was a major source of funding early on, putting in about 6 million out of a 7 million dollar raise, served as chairman of the board, headed product design for the Roadster, and took over as CEO before they launched the Roadster. Tesla publicly acknowledges him as a founder. The founder title is one that a company gives to individuals crucial in the early formation of the company. Musk clearly qualifies. I'm saying all this because I think it's very lame that Musk critics try to say he's not a founder of Tesla. Hate Musk all you want, just use real criticism and not this sophomoric "he's not a Tesla founder" stuff.
- hgsgm 4y ago
  Yes, Musk bought the Founder title from Eberhard. In some countries, "moral rights" ban the practice of buying and selling the right to change facts like authorship.
  - LightBug1 4y ago
    "buying and selling the right to change facts like authorship"... That line made me shiver with disgust... good for those countries.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - ALittleLight 4y ago
    You're allowing your personal feelings for Musk to interfere with facts. Musk provided money, design, and leadership at critical early stages of the company. He's obviously a founder and you are simply wrong for disputing that.
    - now__what 4y ago
      It sounds like he was an influential early investor, but the situation you've described isn't what I would typically think of as "founding" a company. I'm surely not alone in this, thus the present debate. This isn't to diminish Musk's huge influence either; but folks tend not to love when the meanings of words are changed for PR.
      - ALittleLight 4y ago
        [flagged]
        kingboss 4y ago
        Musk was not a founder. He might have been an early investor but he didn't found the company. Stop lying with your fucking propaganda. I hope Musk bought you a pony for your bullshit. You are a musk shill. Stop trying to rewrite history you shill.

jacquesm 4y ago

> Privacy is taken extremely seriously here in Germany. On paper. But there are plenty of examples of companies doing things that they shouldn't be doing.

bhelkey 4y ago
Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. The important question is: what would the consequences be to a German car manufacturer given similar circumstances?
- jacquesm 4y ago
  German regulators are notoriously understaffed, see 'Wirecard'. I would not be surprised if there were no consequences at all until it hit the press or someone in a position of power was embarrassed.
  - bhelkey 4y ago
    > I would not be surprised if there were no consequences at all until it hit the press or someone in a position of power was embarrassed. At which point the Data Protection Authorities (GDPR enforcement) would get involved. They would almost certainly levy a hefty fine against the auto manufacturer.
    - jacquesm 4y ago
      Yes indeed. It's interesting that companies are willing to take these risks, sometimes knowingly.
  - nickff 4y ago
    Missing Wirecard seems to be a product of arrogance and incompetence. Under-staffing could have caused the regulator to overlook the fraud, but the continued obstinacy of the regulators in the face of overwhelming evidence was incompetence. Attempting to prosecute the journalists revealing the fraud was incompetent arrogance.
- 4y ago

hgsgm 4y ago

Point of information: Doge was a meme before the coin. Dogecoin exists because it was created as a meme coin. Given that point, doge is an avatar of stupidity personified (caninified?) and so is a good fit for Twitter.

throwaway4837 4y ago
The coin was created as a joke. However, Dogecoin doesn't have any characteristics of a fake cryptocurrency. The technology is just as sound as Bitcoin's, as it's basically a fork of a fork of a fork with no crazy major changes. Logically, from a technical perspective, you can't think Dogecoin is a joke without also thinking Bitcoin is a joke, unless you disagree with the way Dogecoin changed the block parameters. Bashing it as a "meme" is orthogonal to any technical argument you could make about it.
- ackfoobar 4y ago
  > Logically, from a technical perspective, you can't think Dogecoin is a joke without also thinking Bitcoin is a joke From a game theory perspective, "being first" is a Schelling point. That makes a huge difference between Dogecoin and Bitcoin.
- rocqua 4y ago
  The value of crypto coins doesn't come from technology. It comes from faith in the technology. Inherently value is a social thing, and hence some of what underlies it is social too. Big part of that is the stated intent of a cryptocurrency. People can't rally around a joke about dogs as the best way to do money. People might rally around the first, most serious, and rather conservatively developed cryptocurrency though. Or perhaps the one that best allows computation on the blockchain, or the one that has the best track record of preserving privacy.
- greenthrow 4y ago
  The creator of Dogecoin intended it as a meme and called it stupid. That's just facts, it's not bashing it.
4y ago

ChemSpider 4y ago

So you would rather buy a car from one of the "Dieselgate" companies? > Privacy is taken extremely seriously here in Germany. Yes, to the point nothing can get done anymore and e. g. having an outdated, non-digitalized healthcare system. Tesla is doing it wrong. But Germany is also doing it wrong - just on the other extreme.

ruph123 4y ago
> Yes, to the point nothing can get done anymore and e. g. having an outdated, non-digitalized healthcare system. The system may be slow and not very digital but it is very much not outdated. As someone who has seen a friend go through a terminal illness and has researched quite a lot about cancer treatments, the care you can get in Germany is top notch. And all that for free (except for hospital bed that you have to pay sometimes if you stay longer than a set amount. Which is about 11EUR if I remember correctly). Yes things can be improved and privacy can be a hurdle but it is not quite a bleak as HN commenters make it out to be. I would take it over having everything beging top notch digital without any regards for privacy like it is in the US. (and often very poor or non-existent non-digital solutions)
stametseater 4y ago
> one of the "Dieselgate" companies? There was only one "Dieselgate company", Volkswagen Group. BMW and Mercedes-Benz had nothing to do with it. And yes, I would rather buy a car that cheats on emissions tests than a car which spies on me. That's an easy choice (or would be, if I had any real confidence that VW cars truly don't spy on their users too. Which I don't.)
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- brandonagr2 4y ago
  While Dieselgate refers to VW specifically, there are a lot of companies that have been caught cheating on emissions tests, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_emissions_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_emissions_scandal

huehehue 4y ago

Or buy an old car. Of course there are tradeoffs with efficiency and safety, but I like having a car that's easy to work on and features no telemetry or smart features.

speedgoose 4y ago

I wouldn’t bet on the software security of the German cars nor their mobile apps.

stpe 4y ago

Except you had to register in an app every place you went to, during covid. Nice social profiling that data could provide… say, if another type of party ended up as the ruling one.

kernal 4y ago

>Privacy is taken extremely seriously here in Germany I find this hard to believe considering their numerous lies about their car emissions and the extent they went to cover it up.

recursive 4y ago
What's the correlation? Car emissions aren't composed of PII or anything.
- kernal 4y ago
  The correlation is integrity and honesty. Do you really think these German car companies that lied, cheated and defrauded their customers care about the privacy of your data? That's like asking a criminal if they care about your health.

Danjoe4 4y ago

Hey at least Musk doesn't take things too seriously

m463 4y ago

Do you have more privacy rights if you buy a tesla in germany?

YeBanKo 4y ago

Can you elaborate why German products would be more privacy focused? As a counterpoint, BMW started putting feature behind premium subscriptions couple years ago such as steering wheel. Such micro transactions are really hard to combine with privacy.