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makerofthings | 1 month ago

That’s a great step, now if they would just do one that respects your privacy and doesn’t track your every move, I’d buy one.

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constantcrying|1 month ago

They are bound by the GDPR, which automatically puts them ahead of every American or Chinese manufacturer.

E.g. Tesla, even in Europe, is pretty blatantly ignoring privacy laws and is used to surveil the population: https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/justiz/tesla-waechtermodus-f... (paywall)

crote|1 month ago

VW was also bound by emission standards, yet Dieselgate still happened.

I would be very surprised if it didn't have some kind of "heavily-restricted debugging interface, only available to select VW engineers, which provides a limited set of fully anonymous vehicle diagnostic metrics" - which in practice is of course used to sell trivially deanonymizable data to anyone with a few bucks to spare.

Lio|1 month ago

You're assuming that VW is following the GDPR.

In 2024 when they got hacked it turned out they were gathering (and "lost") a great deal of user data that they weren't supposed to.

https://cybersecuritynews.com/volkswagen-data-breach/

I don't think that VW were punished for that breach; the GDPR has no teeth.

I drive a VW but I won't buy another.

badpun|1 month ago

Tesla is also „bound by GDPR”.

monerozcash|1 month ago

This doesn't seem like a particularly good reason to not buy a car. Either you need one or don't.

Removing network connectivity from basically any new car is trivial, often as simple as pulling an easily accessible fuse.

jqpabc123|1 month ago

Removing network connectivity from basically any new car is trivial, often as simple as pulling an easily accessible fuse.

I'm guessing that you haven't actually done this on "basically any new car".

If you had tried, you would know that there is no fuse dedicated to "network connectivity". It is typically tied in with other, often essential functions like the engine control computer --- specifically in order to thwart a simple disconnect.

What I have seen done is to tear into the right roof pillar and cut the wires going to the antenna on the roof. But this is usually not without consequences as well such as a perpetual error code display and/or the radio, navigation or entertainment functions stop working.