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<h1>It’s Official: Cars Are the Worst Product Category We Have Ever Reviewed for Privacy</h1>
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<div class="rich-text"><p data-block-key="vcgtg">Ah, the wind in your hair, the open road ahead, and not a care in the world… except all the trackers, cameras, microphones, and sensors capturing your every move. <i>Ugh.</i> Modern cars are a <b>privacy nightmare</b>.</p><p data-block-key="b3v4d"></p><p data-block-key="3jls1">Car makers have been bragging about their cars being “computers on wheels&quot; for <a href="https://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-musk-computer-on-wheels-20150319-story.html" target="_blank">years</a> to promote their advanced features. However, the conversation about what driving a computer means for its occupants&#x27; privacy hasn’t really caught up. While we worried that our doorbells and watches that connect to the internet might be spying on us, car brands quietly entered the data business by turning their vehicles into powerful data-gobbling machines. Machines that, because of their all those brag-worthy bells and whistles, have an unmatched power to watch, listen, and collect information about what you do and where you go in your car.</p><p data-block-key="b62rt"></p><p data-block-key="3hbr6"><b>All 25 car brands we researched earned our *Privacy Not Included warning label -- making cars the official worst category of products for privacy that we have ever reviewed.</b></p></div>
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<a class="tw-btn-primary link-button tw-my-8" href="https://foundation.mozilla.org/privacynotincluded/categories/cars/">Read the reviews</a>
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<div class="rich-text"><h2 data-block-key="vcgtg"><a class="fragment-id" id="the-car-brands-we-researched-are-terrible-at-privacy-and-security"></a>The car brands we researched are terrible at privacy and security</h2><p data-block-key="e0fb5"></p><p data-block-key="2n2g4">Why are cars we researched so bad at privacy? And how did they fall so far below our standards? Let us count the ways!</p><p data-block-key="9kda"></p></div>
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<div class="rich-text"><h3 data-block-key="vcgtg"><a class="fragment-id" id="1-they-collect-too-much-personal-data-all-of-them"></a>1. They collect too much personal data (all of them)</h3><p data-block-key="725sa"></p><p data-block-key="46pl2">We reviewed 25 car brands in our research and we handed out 25 “dings” for how those companies collect and use data and personal information. That’s right: <i>every car brand</i> we looked at collects more personal data than necessary and uses that information for a reason other than to operate your vehicle and manage their relationship with you. For context, 63% of the mental health apps (another product category that <a href="https://foundation.mozilla.org/privacynotincluded/articles/are-mental-health-apps-better-or-worse-at-privacy-in-2023/" target="_blank">stinks at privacy</a>) we reviewed this year received this “ding.”</p><p data-block-key="fglqs"></p><p data-block-key="8hhm7">And car companies have so many more data-collecting opportunities than other products and apps we use -- more than even smart devices in our homes or the cell phones we take wherever we go. They can collect personal information from how you interact with <b>your car</b>, the <b>connected services</b> you use in your car, the car’s <b>app</b> (which provides a gateway to information on your <b>phone</b>), and can gather even more information about you from <b>third party sources</b> like Sirius XM or Google Maps. It’s a mess. The ways that car companies collect and share your data are so vast and complicated that we wrote an entire piece on <a href="https://foundation.mozilla.org/privacynotincluded/articles/what-data-does-my-car-collect-about-me-and-where-does-it-go/" target="_blank">how that works</a>. The gist is: they can collect super intimate information about you -- from your medical information, your genetic information, to your “sex life” (seriously), to how fast you drive, where you drive, and what songs you play in your car -- in huge quantities. They then use it to invent more data about you through “inferences” about things like your intelligence, abilities, and interests.</p></div>
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<div class="rich-text"><h3 data-block-key="vcgtg"><a class="fragment-id" id="2-most-84-share-or-sell-your-data"></a>2. Most (84%) share or sell your data</h3><p data-block-key="6atg0"></p><p data-block-key="f9nmp">It’s bad enough for the behemoth corporations that own the car brands to have all that personal information in their possession, to use for their own research, marketing, or the ultra-vague “business purposes.” But then, most (84%) of the car brands we researched say they can <b>share</b> your personal data -- with service providers, data brokers, and other businesses <a href="https://foundation.mozilla.org/privacynotincluded/articles/what-data-does-my-car-collect-about-me-and-where-does-it-go/" target="_blank">we know little</a> or nothing about. Worse, nineteen (76%) say they can <b>sell your personal data</b>.</p><p data-block-key="64v3o"></p><p data-block-key="6og3n">A surprising number (56%) also say they can share your information with the <b>government or law enforcement</b> in response to a “request.” Not a high bar court order, but something as easy as an “informal request.” Yikes -- that’s a very low bar! A 2023 rewrite of Thelma &amp; Louise would have the ladies in custody before you’ve had a chance to make a dent in your popcorn. But seriously, car companies&#x27; willingness to share your data is beyond creepy. It has the potential to cause real harm and inspired our worst <a href="https://foundation.mozilla.org/privacynotincluded/articles/after-researching-cars-and-privacy-heres-what-keeps-us-up-at-night/" target="_blank">cars-and-privacy nightmares</a>.</p><p data-block-key="1kjv5"></p><p data-block-key="91c9d">And keep in mind that we only know what companies do with personal data because of the privacy laws that make it illegal not to disclose that information (go California Consumer Privacy Act!). <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jul/23/anonymised-data-never-be-anonymous-enough-study-finds" target="_blank">So-called</a> anonymized and aggregated data can (and probably is) shared too, with vehicle data hubs (the data brokers of the auto industry) and others. So while you are getting from A to B, you’re also funding your car’s thriving side-hustle in the data business in more ways than one.</p></div>
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<div class="rich-text"><h3 data-block-key="vcgtg"><a class="fragment-id" id="3-most-92-give-drivers-little-to-no-control-over-their-personal-data"></a>3. Most (92%) give drivers little to no control over their personal data</h3><p data-block-key="6q2er"></p><p data-block-key="22all">All but two of the 25 car brands we reviewed earned our “ding” for data control, meaning only two car brands, <a href="https://foundation.mozilla.org/privacynotincluded/renault/" target="_blank">Renault</a> and <a href="https://foundation.mozilla.org/privacynotincluded/dacia/" target="_blank">Dacia</a> (which are owned by the same parent company) say that all drivers have the right to have their personal data deleted. We would like to think this deviation is one car company taking a stand for drivers’ privacy. It’s probably no coincidence though that these cars are only available in Europe -- which is protected by the robust General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) privacy law. In other words: car brands often do whatever they can legally get away with to your personal data.</p></div>
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<div class="rich-text"><h3 data-block-key="vcgtg"><a class="fragment-id" id="4-we-couldnt-confirm-whether-any-of-them-meet-our-minimum-security-standards"></a>4. We couldn’t confirm whether <i>any</i> of them meet our Minimum Security Standards</h3><p data-block-key="735ad"></p><p data-block-key="c5l3h">It’s so strange to us that dating apps and sex toys publish more detailed security information than cars. Even though the car brands we researched each had several long-winded privacy policies (<a href="https://foundation.mozilla.org/privacynotincluded/toyota/" target="_blank">Toyota</a> wins with 12), we couldn’t find confirmation that <i>any</i> of the brands <a href="https://foundation.mozilla.org/privacynotincluded/about/methodology/" target="_blank">meet</a> our Minimum Security Standards.</p><p data-block-key="2tcbn"></p><p data-block-key="cu0h4">Our main concern is that we can’t tell whether any of the cars encrypt all of the personal information that sits on the car. And that’s the bare minimum! We don’t call them our state-of-the-art security standards, after all. We reached out (as we always do) by email to ask for clarity but most of the car companies completely ignored us. Those who at least responded (<a href="https://foundation.mozilla.org/privacynotincluded/mercedes-benz/" target="_blank">Mercedes-Benz</a>, <a href="https://foundation.mozilla.org/privacynotincluded/honda/" target="_blank">Honda</a>, and technically <a href="https://foundation.mozilla.org/privacynotincluded/ford/" target="_blank">Ford</a>) still didn’t completely answer our basic security questions.</p><p data-block-key="2p31a"></p><p data-block-key="9f0je">A failure to properly address cybersecurity might explain their frankly embarrassing security and privacy track records. We only looked at the last three years, but still found plenty to go on with 17 (68%) of the car brands earning the “bad track record” ding for leaks, hacks, and breaches that threatened their drivers’ privacy.</p></div>
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<div class="rich-text"><h2 data-block-key="vcgtg"><a class="fragment-id" id="at-a-glance-how-the-car-brands-stack-up"></a>At a glance: How the car brands stack up</h2><p data-block-key="b7q9"></p><p data-block-key="c8kmu">Here’s how the cars performed against our privacy and security <a href="https://foundation.mozilla.org/privacynotincluded/about/methodology/" target="_blank">criteria</a>.</p></div>
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<div class="rich-text"><h3 data-block-key="vcgtg"><a class="fragment-id" id="some-not-so-fun-facts-about-these-rankings"></a>Some not-so-fun facts about these rankings:</h3><p data-block-key="f1hq9"></p><ul><li data-block-key="7vu07"><a href="https://foundation.mozilla.org/privacynotincluded/tesla/" target="_blank">Tesla</a> is only the second product we have ever reviewed to receive all of our privacy “dings.” (The first was an <a href="https://foundation.mozilla.org/privacynotincluded/replika-my-ai-friend/" target="_blank">AI chatbot</a> we reviewed earlier this year.) What set them apart was earning the “<b>untrustworthy AI</b>” ding. The brand’s AI-powered autopilot was reportedly <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/06/10/tesla-autopilot-crashes-elon-musk/" target="_blank">involved</a> in 17 deaths and 736 crashes and is currently the subject of multiple government <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/26/23809183/tesla-autopilot-investigation-false-advertising-california-attorney-general" target="_blank">investigations</a>.</li></ul><p data-block-key="3rfcp"></p><ul><li data-block-key="dpeme"><a href="https://foundation.mozilla.org/privacynotincluded/nissan/" target="_blank">Nissan</a> earned its second-to-last spot for collecting some of the <b>creepiest categories</b> of data we have ever seen. It’s worth reading the review in full, but you should know it includes your “<b>sexual activity</b>.” Not to be out done, Kia also mentions they can collect information about your “<b>sex life</b>” in their privacy policy. Oh, and six car companies say they can collect your “<b>genetic information</b>” or “genetic characteristics.” Yes, reading car privacy policies is a scary endeavor.</li></ul><p data-block-key="4u392"></p><ul><li data-block-key="di581">None of the car brands use language that meets Mozilla’s <a href="https://www.mozilla.org/about/policy/transparency/" target="_blank">privacy standard</a> about sharing information with the government or law enforcement, but <a href="https://foundation.mozilla.org/privacynotincluded/hyundai/" target="_blank">Hyundai</a> goes above and beyond. In their privacy policy, it says they will comply with “lawful requests, <b>whether formal or informal</b>.” That’s a serious red flag.</li></ul><p data-block-key="ao5hn"></p><ul><li data-block-key="9vajt">All of the car brands on this list except for Tesla, Renault, and Dacia signed on to a list of <a href="https://www.autosinnovate.org/innovation/Automotive%20Privacy/Consumer_Privacy_Principlesfor_VehicleTechnologies_Services-03-21-19.pdf" target="_blank">Consumer Protection Principles</a> from the US automotive industry group ALLIANCE FOR AUTOMOTIVE INNOVATION, INC. The list includes great privacy-preserving principles such as “data minimization,” “transparency,” and “choice.” But the number of car brands that follow these principles? Zero. It’s interesting if only because it means the car companies do clearly <b>know what they should be doing to respect your privacy</b> even though they absolutely don’t do it.</li></ul><p data-block-key="95tkq"></p></div>
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<div class="rich-text"><h2 data-block-key="vcgtg"><a class="fragment-id" id="what-can-you-do-about-it-well"></a>What can you do about it? Well…</h2><p data-block-key="f8r2e"></p><p data-block-key="c4t17">This is usually where we’d encourage you to <a href="https://foundation.mozilla.org/privacynotincluded/categories/cars/" target="_blank">read our reviews</a>, and to choose the products you can trust when you can. But, cars aren’t really like that.</p><p data-block-key="d8ggi"></p><p data-block-key="utph">Sure, there are some steps you can take to protect more of your privacy, and we’ve listed them all in each of our <a href="https://foundation.mozilla.org/privacynotincluded/categories/cars/" target="_blank">reviews</a> under “Tips to protect yourself.” They’re definitely worth doing. You can also avoid using your car’s app or limit its permissions on your phone. (Since many of the apps share a privacy policy with the vehicle, we can’t always tell which data is taken from your phone so it’s probably better to err on the side of caution by not using it.) But compared to all the data collection you can’t control, these steps feel like tiny drops in a massive bucket. Plus, you deserve to benefit from all the features you pay for without also having to give up your privacy.</p><p data-block-key="amorv"></p><p data-block-key="5phvo">The <b>lack of choice</b> has really been among the biggest bummers in reading up on cars and privacy. Consumers’ choices are limited in so many ways with cars, because:</p></div>
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<div class="rich-text"><h3 data-block-key="vcgtg"><a class="fragment-id" id="theyre-all-bad"></a>They’re all bad</h3><p data-block-key="f2gap"></p><p data-block-key="9sbk2">People don’t comparison-shop for cars based on privacy. And they shouldn’t be expected to. That’s because there are so many other limiting factors for car buyers. Like cost, fuel efficiency, availability, reliability, and the features you need. Even if you did have the funds and the resources to comparison shop for your car based on privacy, you wouldn’t find much of a difference. Because according to our research, they are all bad! On top of all that, researching cars and privacy was one of the hardest undertakings we as privacy researchers have ever had. Sorting through the large and confusing ecosystem of privacy policies for cars, car apps, car connected services, and more isn’t something most people have the time or experience to do.</p><p data-block-key="3oq41"></p><p data-block-key="6k4r">Like we mentioned, <b><i>all</i></b><b> of the cars we researched earned our *Privacy Not Included warning label</b>. All of the car brands we researched got our “data use” and “security” dings -- and most earned dings for poor data control and bad track records too! We can’t stress enough how bad and not normal this is for an entire product guide to earn warning labels.</p></div>
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<div class="rich-text"><h3 data-block-key="vcgtg"><a class="fragment-id" id="its-so-confusing"></a>It’s so confusing</h3><p data-block-key="4hvfh"></p><p data-block-key="6gs8c">We spent over <b>600 hours</b> researching the car brands’ privacy practices. That’s three times as much time per product than we normally do. Even still, we were left with so many questions. None of the privacy policies promise a full picture of how your data is used and shared. If three privacy researchers can barely get to the bottom of what’s going on with cars, how does the average time-pressed person stand a chance?</p></div>
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<div class="rich-text"><h3 data-block-key="vcgtg"><a class="fragment-id" id="but-wait-theres-more"></a>But wait, there’s more!</h3><p data-block-key="9fv20"></p><h3 data-block-key="eeitd"><a class="fragment-id" id="consent-is-an-illusion"></a>&quot;Consent” is an illusion</h3><p data-block-key="flifi"></p><p data-block-key="acnho">Many people have lifestyles that require driving. So unlike a smart faucet or voice assistant, you don’t have the same freedom to opt out of the whole thing and not drive a car. We’ve <a href="https://foundation.mozilla.org/privacynotincluded/articles/what-does-giving-your-consent-really-mean/" target="_blank">talked before</a> about the murky ways that companies can manipulate your consent. And car companies are no exception. Often, they ignore your consent. Sometimes, they assume it. Car companies do that by <i>assuming</i> that you have read and agreed to their policies before you step foot in their cars. <a href="https://foundation.mozilla.org/privacynotincluded/subaru/" target="_blank">Subaru</a>’s privacy policy says that even passengers of a car that uses connected services have “consented” to allow them to use -- and maybe even sell -- their personal information just by being inside.</p><p data-block-key="4jloe"></p><p data-block-key="4mbmi">So when car companies say they have your “consent” or won’t do something “without your consent,” it often doesn’t mean what it should. Like when Tesla says, that sure! You can opt out of data collection, but it might break your car:</p></div>
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<div class="quote-content"><div class="rich-text"><p data-block-key="l3i5y">However, “<b>if you no longer wish for us to collect vehicle data or any other data from your Tesla vehicle</b>, please contact us to deactivate connectivity. Please note, certain advanced features such as over-the-air updates, remote services, and interactivity with mobile applications and in-car features such as location search, Internet radio, voice commands, and web browser functionality rely on such connectivity. If you choose to opt out of vehicle data collection (with the exception of in-car Data Sharing preferences), we will not be able to know or notify you of issues applicable to your vehicle in real time. <b>This may result in your vehicle suffering from reduced functionality, serious damage, or inoperability</b>.&quot;</p></div></div>
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<div class="rich-text"><p data-block-key="vcgtg">A few of the car companies we researched take manipulating your consent one step further by making you complicit in getting “consent” from others, saying it’s <i>on you</i> to inform them of your car’s privacy policies. Like when <a href="https://foundation.mozilla.org/privacynotincluded/nissan/" target="_blank">Nissan</a> makes you “<b>promise to</b> <b>educate and inform all users and occupants of your Vehicle</b> about the Services and System features and limitations, the terms of the Agreement, including terms concerning data collection and use and privacy, and the Nissan Privacy Policy.” OK, <a href="https://foundation.mozilla.org/privacynotincluded/nissan/" target="_blank">Nissan</a>! We would love to meet the social butterfly who drafted this line.</p></div>
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<div class="rich-text"><h2 data-block-key="vcgtg"><a class="fragment-id" id="dont-worry-there-is-something-you-can-do"></a>Don’t worry!! There is something you can do!</h2><p data-block-key="87cum"></p><p data-block-key="al447">Hey woah don’t hang up your driving gloves just yet! We’re not saying the situation is hopeless. What we are saying is that it’s not fair for the burden to be on consumers to make “better choices” that in this case don’t exist. And we don’t want to take a page from car companies’ books by asking you to do things no reasonable person would ever do -- like reciting a 9,461-word privacy policy to everyone who opens your car’s doors.</p><p data-block-key="5tbvo"></p><p data-block-key="6kfh7">You’re already helping us to spread the word just by reading our research. Our hope is that increasing awareness will encourage others to hold car companies accountable for their terrible privacy practices too. But that’s not all. <b>On behalf of the Mozilla community, we’re asking car companies to stop their huge data collection programs that only benefit them.</b> Join us!</p><p data-block-key="do3m1"></p><p data-block-key="e55j6">Add your name to ask car companies to respect drivers’ privacy and to stop collecting, sharing and selling our very personal information.</p></div>
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title: It’s Official: Cars Are the Worst Product Category We Have Ever Reviewed for Privacy
url: https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/articles/its-official-cars-are-the-worst-product-category-we-have-ever-reviewed-for-privacy/
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<div class="rich-text"><p data-block-key="vcgtg">Ah, the wind in your hair, the open road ahead, and not a care in the world… except all the trackers, cameras, microphones, and sensors capturing your every move. <i>Ugh.</i> Modern cars are a <b>privacy nightmare</b>.</p><p data-block-key="b3v4d"></p><p data-block-key="3jls1">Car makers have been bragging about their cars being “computers on wheels&quot; for <a href="https://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-musk-computer-on-wheels-20150319-story.html" target="_blank">years</a> to promote their advanced features. However, the conversation about what driving a computer means for its occupants&#x27; privacy hasn’t really caught up. While we worried that our doorbells and watches that connect to the internet might be spying on us, car brands quietly entered the data business by turning their vehicles into powerful data-gobbling machines. Machines that, because of their all those brag-worthy bells and whistles, have an unmatched power to watch, listen, and collect information about what you do and where you go in your car.</p><p data-block-key="b62rt"></p><p data-block-key="3hbr6"><b>All 25 car brands we researched earned our *Privacy Not Included warning label -- making cars the official worst category of products for privacy that we have ever reviewed.</b></p></div>
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<div class="rich-text"><h2 data-block-key="vcgtg"><a class="fragment-id" id="the-car-brands-we-researched-are-terrible-at-privacy-and-security"></a>The car brands we researched are terrible at privacy and security</h2><p data-block-key="e0fb5"></p><p data-block-key="2n2g4">Why are cars we researched so bad at privacy? And how did they fall so far below our standards? Let us count the ways!</p><p data-block-key="9kda"></p></div>
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<div class="rich-text"><h3 data-block-key="vcgtg"><a class="fragment-id" id="1-they-collect-too-much-personal-data-all-of-them"></a>1. They collect too much personal data (all of them)</h3><p data-block-key="725sa"></p><p data-block-key="46pl2">We reviewed 25 car brands in our research and we handed out 25 “dings” for how those companies collect and use data and personal information. That’s right: <i>every car brand</i> we looked at collects more personal data than necessary and uses that information for a reason other than to operate your vehicle and manage their relationship with you. For context, 63% of the mental health apps (another product category that <a href="https://foundation.mozilla.org/privacynotincluded/articles/are-mental-health-apps-better-or-worse-at-privacy-in-2023/" target="_blank">stinks at privacy</a>) we reviewed this year received this “ding.”</p><p data-block-key="fglqs"></p><p data-block-key="8hhm7">And car companies have so many more data-collecting opportunities than other products and apps we use -- more than even smart devices in our homes or the cell phones we take wherever we go. They can collect personal information from how you interact with <b>your car</b>, the <b>connected services</b> you use in your car, the car’s <b>app</b> (which provides a gateway to information on your <b>phone</b>), and can gather even more information about you from <b>third party sources</b> like Sirius XM or Google Maps. It’s a mess. The ways that car companies collect and share your data are so vast and complicated that we wrote an entire piece on <a href="https://foundation.mozilla.org/privacynotincluded/articles/what-data-does-my-car-collect-about-me-and-where-does-it-go/" target="_blank">how that works</a>. The gist is: they can collect super intimate information about you -- from your medical information, your genetic information, to your “sex life” (seriously), to how fast you drive, where you drive, and what songs you play in your car -- in huge quantities. They then use it to invent more data about you through “inferences” about things like your intelligence, abilities, and interests.</p></div>
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<div class="rich-text"><h3 data-block-key="vcgtg"><a class="fragment-id" id="2-most-84-share-or-sell-your-data"></a>2. Most (84%) share or sell your data</h3><p data-block-key="6atg0"></p><p data-block-key="f9nmp">It’s bad enough for the behemoth corporations that own the car brands to have all that personal information in their possession, to use for their own research, marketing, or the ultra-vague “business purposes.” But then, most (84%) of the car brands we researched say they can <b>share</b> your personal data -- with service providers, data brokers, and other businesses <a href="https://foundation.mozilla.org/privacynotincluded/articles/what-data-does-my-car-collect-about-me-and-where-does-it-go/" target="_blank">we know little</a> or nothing about. Worse, nineteen (76%) say they can <b>sell your personal data</b>.</p><p data-block-key="64v3o"></p><p data-block-key="6og3n">A surprising number (56%) also say they can share your information with the <b>government or law enforcement</b> in response to a “request.” Not a high bar court order, but something as easy as an “informal request.” Yikes -- that’s a very low bar! A 2023 rewrite of Thelma &amp; Louise would have the ladies in custody before you’ve had a chance to make a dent in your popcorn. But seriously, car companies&#x27; willingness to share your data is beyond creepy. It has the potential to cause real harm and inspired our worst <a href="https://foundation.mozilla.org/privacynotincluded/articles/after-researching-cars-and-privacy-heres-what-keeps-us-up-at-night/" target="_blank">cars-and-privacy nightmares</a>.</p><p data-block-key="1kjv5"></p><p data-block-key="91c9d">And keep in mind that we only know what companies do with personal data because of the privacy laws that make it illegal not to disclose that information (go California Consumer Privacy Act!). <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jul/23/anonymised-data-never-be-anonymous-enough-study-finds" target="_blank">So-called</a> anonymized and aggregated data can (and probably is) shared too, with vehicle data hubs (the data brokers of the auto industry) and others. So while you are getting from A to B, you’re also funding your car’s thriving side-hustle in the data business in more ways than one.</p></div>
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<div class="rich-text"><h3 data-block-key="vcgtg"><a class="fragment-id" id="3-most-92-give-drivers-little-to-no-control-over-their-personal-data"></a>3. Most (92%) give drivers little to no control over their personal data</h3><p data-block-key="6q2er"></p><p data-block-key="22all">All but two of the 25 car brands we reviewed earned our “ding” for data control, meaning only two car brands, <a href="https://foundation.mozilla.org/privacynotincluded/renault/" target="_blank">Renault</a> and <a href="https://foundation.mozilla.org/privacynotincluded/dacia/" target="_blank">Dacia</a> (which are owned by the same parent company) say that all drivers have the right to have their personal data deleted. We would like to think this deviation is one car company taking a stand for drivers’ privacy. It’s probably no coincidence though that these cars are only available in Europe -- which is protected by the robust General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) privacy law. In other words: car brands often do whatever they can legally get away with to your personal data.</p></div>
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<div class="rich-text"><h3 data-block-key="vcgtg"><a class="fragment-id" id="4-we-couldnt-confirm-whether-any-of-them-meet-our-minimum-security-standards"></a>4. We couldn’t confirm whether <i>any</i> of them meet our Minimum Security Standards</h3><p data-block-key="735ad"></p><p data-block-key="c5l3h">It’s so strange to us that dating apps and sex toys publish more detailed security information than cars. Even though the car brands we researched each had several long-winded privacy policies (<a href="https://foundation.mozilla.org/privacynotincluded/toyota/" target="_blank">Toyota</a> wins with 12), we couldn’t find confirmation that <i>any</i> of the brands <a href="https://foundation.mozilla.org/privacynotincluded/about/methodology/" target="_blank">meet</a> our Minimum Security Standards.</p><p data-block-key="2tcbn"></p><p data-block-key="cu0h4">Our main concern is that we can’t tell whether any of the cars encrypt all of the personal information that sits on the car. And that’s the bare minimum! We don’t call them our state-of-the-art security standards, after all. We reached out (as we always do) by email to ask for clarity but most of the car companies completely ignored us. Those who at least responded (<a href="https://foundation.mozilla.org/privacynotincluded/mercedes-benz/" target="_blank">Mercedes-Benz</a>, <a href="https://foundation.mozilla.org/privacynotincluded/honda/" target="_blank">Honda</a>, and technically <a href="https://foundation.mozilla.org/privacynotincluded/ford/" target="_blank">Ford</a>) still didn’t completely answer our basic security questions.</p><p data-block-key="2p31a"></p><p data-block-key="9f0je">A failure to properly address cybersecurity might explain their frankly embarrassing security and privacy track records. We only looked at the last three years, but still found plenty to go on with 17 (68%) of the car brands earning the “bad track record” ding for leaks, hacks, and breaches that threatened their drivers’ privacy.</p></div>
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<div class="rich-text"><h2 data-block-key="vcgtg"><a class="fragment-id" id="at-a-glance-how-the-car-brands-stack-up"></a>At a glance: How the car brands stack up</h2><p data-block-key="b7q9"></p><p data-block-key="c8kmu">Here’s how the cars performed against our privacy and security <a href="https://foundation.mozilla.org/privacynotincluded/about/methodology/" target="_blank">criteria</a>.</p></div>
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<div class="rich-text"><h3 data-block-key="vcgtg"><a class="fragment-id" id="some-not-so-fun-facts-about-these-rankings"></a>Some not-so-fun facts about these rankings:</h3><p data-block-key="f1hq9"></p><ul><li data-block-key="7vu07"><a href="https://foundation.mozilla.org/privacynotincluded/tesla/" target="_blank">Tesla</a> is only the second product we have ever reviewed to receive all of our privacy “dings.” (The first was an <a href="https://foundation.mozilla.org/privacynotincluded/replika-my-ai-friend/" target="_blank">AI chatbot</a> we reviewed earlier this year.) What set them apart was earning the “<b>untrustworthy AI</b>” ding. The brand’s AI-powered autopilot was reportedly <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/06/10/tesla-autopilot-crashes-elon-musk/" target="_blank">involved</a> in 17 deaths and 736 crashes and is currently the subject of multiple government <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/26/23809183/tesla-autopilot-investigation-false-advertising-california-attorney-general" target="_blank">investigations</a>.</li></ul><p data-block-key="3rfcp"></p><ul><li data-block-key="dpeme"><a href="https://foundation.mozilla.org/privacynotincluded/nissan/" target="_blank">Nissan</a> earned its second-to-last spot for collecting some of the <b>creepiest categories</b> of data we have ever seen. It’s worth reading the review in full, but you should know it includes your “<b>sexual activity</b>.” Not to be out done, Kia also mentions they can collect information about your “<b>sex life</b>” in their privacy policy. Oh, and six car companies say they can collect your “<b>genetic information</b>” or “genetic characteristics.” Yes, reading car privacy policies is a scary endeavor.</li></ul><p data-block-key="4u392"></p><ul><li data-block-key="di581">None of the car brands use language that meets Mozilla’s <a href="https://www.mozilla.org/about/policy/transparency/" target="_blank">privacy standard</a> about sharing information with the government or law enforcement, but <a href="https://foundation.mozilla.org/privacynotincluded/hyundai/" target="_blank">Hyundai</a> goes above and beyond. In their privacy policy, it says they will comply with “lawful requests, <b>whether formal or informal</b>.” That’s a serious red flag.</li></ul><p data-block-key="ao5hn"></p><ul><li data-block-key="9vajt">All of the car brands on this list except for Tesla, Renault, and Dacia signed on to a list of <a href="https://www.autosinnovate.org/innovation/Automotive%20Privacy/Consumer_Privacy_Principlesfor_VehicleTechnologies_Services-03-21-19.pdf" target="_blank">Consumer Protection Principles</a> from the US automotive industry group ALLIANCE FOR AUTOMOTIVE INNOVATION, INC. The list includes great privacy-preserving principles such as “data minimization,” “transparency,” and “choice.” But the number of car brands that follow these principles? Zero. It’s interesting if only because it means the car companies do clearly <b>know what they should be doing to respect your privacy</b> even though they absolutely don’t do it.</li></ul><p data-block-key="95tkq"></p></div>
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<div class="rich-text"><h2 data-block-key="vcgtg"><a class="fragment-id" id="what-can-you-do-about-it-well"></a>What can you do about it? Well…</h2><p data-block-key="f8r2e"></p><p data-block-key="c4t17">This is usually where we’d encourage you to <a href="https://foundation.mozilla.org/privacynotincluded/categories/cars/" target="_blank">read our reviews</a>, and to choose the products you can trust when you can. But, cars aren’t really like that.</p><p data-block-key="d8ggi"></p><p data-block-key="utph">Sure, there are some steps you can take to protect more of your privacy, and we’ve listed them all in each of our <a href="https://foundation.mozilla.org/privacynotincluded/categories/cars/" target="_blank">reviews</a> under “Tips to protect yourself.” They’re definitely worth doing. You can also avoid using your car’s app or limit its permissions on your phone. (Since many of the apps share a privacy policy with the vehicle, we can’t always tell which data is taken from your phone so it’s probably better to err on the side of caution by not using it.) But compared to all the data collection you can’t control, these steps feel like tiny drops in a massive bucket. Plus, you deserve to benefit from all the features you pay for without also having to give up your privacy.</p><p data-block-key="amorv"></p><p data-block-key="5phvo">The <b>lack of choice</b> has really been among the biggest bummers in reading up on cars and privacy. Consumers’ choices are limited in so many ways with cars, because:</p></div>
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<div class="rich-text"><h3 data-block-key="vcgtg"><a class="fragment-id" id="theyre-all-bad"></a>They’re all bad</h3><p data-block-key="f2gap"></p><p data-block-key="9sbk2">People don’t comparison-shop for cars based on privacy. And they shouldn’t be expected to. That’s because there are so many other limiting factors for car buyers. Like cost, fuel efficiency, availability, reliability, and the features you need. Even if you did have the funds and the resources to comparison shop for your car based on privacy, you wouldn’t find much of a difference. Because according to our research, they are all bad! On top of all that, researching cars and privacy was one of the hardest undertakings we as privacy researchers have ever had. Sorting through the large and confusing ecosystem of privacy policies for cars, car apps, car connected services, and more isn’t something most people have the time or experience to do.</p><p data-block-key="3oq41"></p><p data-block-key="6k4r">Like we mentioned, <b><i>all</i></b><b> of the cars we researched earned our *Privacy Not Included warning label</b>. All of the car brands we researched got our “data use” and “security” dings -- and most earned dings for poor data control and bad track records too! We can’t stress enough how bad and not normal this is for an entire product guide to earn warning labels.</p></div>
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<div class="rich-text"><h3 data-block-key="vcgtg"><a class="fragment-id" id="its-so-confusing"></a>It’s so confusing</h3><p data-block-key="4hvfh"></p><p data-block-key="6gs8c">We spent over <b>600 hours</b> researching the car brands’ privacy practices. That’s three times as much time per product than we normally do. Even still, we were left with so many questions. None of the privacy policies promise a full picture of how your data is used and shared. If three privacy researchers can barely get to the bottom of what’s going on with cars, how does the average time-pressed person stand a chance?</p></div>
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<div class="rich-text"><h3 data-block-key="vcgtg"><a class="fragment-id" id="but-wait-theres-more"></a>But wait, there’s more!</h3><p data-block-key="9fv20"></p><h3 data-block-key="eeitd"><a class="fragment-id" id="consent-is-an-illusion"></a>&quot;Consent” is an illusion</h3><p data-block-key="flifi"></p><p data-block-key="acnho">Many people have lifestyles that require driving. So unlike a smart faucet or voice assistant, you don’t have the same freedom to opt out of the whole thing and not drive a car. We’ve <a href="https://foundation.mozilla.org/privacynotincluded/articles/what-does-giving-your-consent-really-mean/" target="_blank">talked before</a> about the murky ways that companies can manipulate your consent. And car companies are no exception. Often, they ignore your consent. Sometimes, they assume it. Car companies do that by <i>assuming</i> that you have read and agreed to their policies before you step foot in their cars. <a href="https://foundation.mozilla.org/privacynotincluded/subaru/" target="_blank">Subaru</a>’s privacy policy says that even passengers of a car that uses connected services have “consented” to allow them to use -- and maybe even sell -- their personal information just by being inside.</p><p data-block-key="4jloe"></p><p data-block-key="4mbmi">So when car companies say they have your “consent” or won’t do something “without your consent,” it often doesn’t mean what it should. Like when Tesla says, that sure! You can opt out of data collection, but it might break your car:</p></div>
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<div class="quote-content"><div class="rich-text"><p data-block-key="l3i5y">However, “<b>if you no longer wish for us to collect vehicle data or any other data from your Tesla vehicle</b>, please contact us to deactivate connectivity. Please note, certain advanced features such as over-the-air updates, remote services, and interactivity with mobile applications and in-car features such as location search, Internet radio, voice commands, and web browser functionality rely on such connectivity. If you choose to opt out of vehicle data collection (with the exception of in-car Data Sharing preferences), we will not be able to know or notify you of issues applicable to your vehicle in real time. <b>This may result in your vehicle suffering from reduced functionality, serious damage, or inoperability</b>.&quot;</p></div></div>
<p class="tw-h6-heading tw-text-lg tw-max-w-4xl">Tesla&#x27;s Customer Privacy Notice</p>
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<div class="rich-text"><p data-block-key="j1i91"><a href="https://www.tesla.com/legal/privacy" target="_blank">https://www.tesla.com/legal/privacy</a></p></div>
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<div class="rich-text"><p data-block-key="vcgtg">A few of the car companies we researched take manipulating your consent one step further by making you complicit in getting “consent” from others, saying it’s <i>on you</i> to inform them of your car’s privacy policies. Like when <a href="https://foundation.mozilla.org/privacynotincluded/nissan/" target="_blank">Nissan</a> makes you “<b>promise to</b> <b>educate and inform all users and occupants of your Vehicle</b> about the Services and System features and limitations, the terms of the Agreement, including terms concerning data collection and use and privacy, and the Nissan Privacy Policy.” OK, <a href="https://foundation.mozilla.org/privacynotincluded/nissan/" target="_blank">Nissan</a>! We would love to meet the social butterfly who drafted this line.</p></div>
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<div class="rich-text"><h2 data-block-key="vcgtg"><a class="fragment-id" id="dont-worry-there-is-something-you-can-do"></a>Don’t worry!! There is something you can do!</h2><p data-block-key="87cum"></p><p data-block-key="al447">Hey woah don’t hang up your driving gloves just yet! We’re not saying the situation is hopeless. What we are saying is that it’s not fair for the burden to be on consumers to make “better choices” that in this case don’t exist. And we don’t want to take a page from car companies’ books by asking you to do things no reasonable person would ever do -- like reciting a 9,461-word privacy policy to everyone who opens your car’s doors.</p><p data-block-key="5tbvo"></p><p data-block-key="6kfh7">You’re already helping us to spread the word just by reading our research. Our hope is that increasing awareness will encourage others to hold car companies accountable for their terrible privacy practices too. But that’s not all. <b>On behalf of the Mozilla community, we’re asking car companies to stop their huge data collection programs that only benefit them.</b> Join us!</p><p data-block-key="do3m1"></p><p data-block-key="e55j6">Add your name to ask car companies to respect drivers’ privacy and to stop collecting, sharing and selling our very personal information.</p></div>
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<h1>Pluralistic: Autoenshittification (24 July 2023)</h1>
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<p>Forget F1: the only car race that matters now is the race to turn your car into a digital extraction machine, a high-speed inkjet printer on wheels, stealing your private data as it picks your pocket. Your car's digital infrastructure is a costly, dangerous nightmare – but for automakers in pursuit of postcapitalist utopia, it's a dream they can't give up on.</p>
<p>Your car is <em>stuffed</em> full of microchips, a fact the world came to appreciate after the pandemic struck and auto production ground to a halt due to chip shortages. Of course, that wasn't the whole story: when the pandemic started, the automakers panicked and canceled their chip orders, only to immediately regret that decision and place new orders.</p>
<p>But it was too late: semiconductor production had taken a serious body-blow, and when Big Car placed its new chip orders, it went to the back of a long, slow-moving line. It was a catastrophic bungle: microchips are so integral to car production that a car is basically a computer network on wheels that you stick your fragile human body into and pray.</p>
<p>The car manufacturers got <em>so</em> desperate for chips that they started buying up <em>washing machines</em> for the microchips in them, extracting the chips and discarding the washing machines like some absurdo-dystopian cyberpunk walnut-shelling machine:</p>
<p><a href="https://www.autoevolution.com/news/desperate-times-companies-buy-washing-machines-just-to-rip-out-the-chips-187033.html">https://www.autoevolution.com/news/desperate-times-companies-buy-washing-machines-just-to-rip-out-the-chips-187033.html</a></p>
<p>These digital systems are a huge problem for the car companies. They are the underlying cause of a precipitous decline in car quality. From touch-based digital door-locks to networked sensors and cameras, every digital system in your car is a source of endless repair nightmares, costly recalls and cybersecurity vulnerabilities:</p>
<p><a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/quality-new-vehicles-us-declining-more-tech-use-study-shows-2023-06-22/">https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/quality-new-vehicles-us-declining-more-tech-use-study-shows-2023-06-22/</a></p>
<p>What's more, drivers <em>hate</em> all the digital bullshit, from the janky touchscreens to the shitty, wildly insecure apps. Digital systems are drivers' most significant point of dissatisfaction with the automakers' products:</p>
<p><a href="https://www.theverge.com/23801545/car-infotainment-customer-satisifaction-survey-jd-power">https://www.theverge.com/23801545/car-infotainment-customer-satisifaction-survey-jd-power</a></p>
<p>Even the automakers sorta-kinda admit that this is a problem. Back in 2020 when Massachusetts was having a Right-to-Repair ballot initiative, Big Car ran these <em>unfuckingbelievable</em> scare ads that basically said, "Your car spies on you so comprehensively that giving anyone else access to its systems will let murderers stalk you to your home and <em>kill you</em>:</p>
<p><a href="https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/03/rip-david-graeber/#rolling-surveillance-platforms">https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/03/rip-david-graeber/#rolling-surveillance-platforms</a></p>
<p>But even amid all the complaining about cars getting stuck in the Internet of Shit, there's still not much discussion of <em>why</em> the car-makers are making their products less attractive, less reliable, less safe, and less resilient by stuffing them full of microchips. Are car execs just the latest generation of rubes who've been suckered by Silicon Valley bullshit and convinced that apps are a magic path to profitability?</p>
<p>Nope. Car execs are sophisticated businesspeople, and they're surfing capitalism's latest – and last – hot trend: dismantling capitalism itself.</p>
<p>Now, leftists have been predicting the death of capitalism since <em>The Communist Manifesto</em>, but even Marx and Engels warned us not to get too frisky: capitalism, they wrote, is endlessly creative, constantly reinventing itself, re-emerging from each crisis in a new form that is perfectly adapted to the post-crisis reality:</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/31/books/review/a-spectre-haunting-china-mieville.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/31/books/review/a-spectre-haunting-china-mieville.html</a></p>
<p>But capitalism has finally run out of gas. In his forthcoming book, <em>Techno Feudalism: What Killed Capitalism</em>, Yanis Varoufakis proposes that capitalism has died – but it wasn't replaced by socialism. Rather, capitalism has given way to <em>feudalism</em>:</p>
<p><a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/451795/technofeudalism-by-varoufakis-yanis/9781847927279">https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/451795/technofeudalism-by-varoufakis-yanis/9781847927279</a></p>
<p>Under capitalism, capital is the prime mover. The people who own and mobilize capital – the capitalists – organize the economy and take the lion's share of its returns. But it wasn't always this way: for hundreds of years, European civilization was dominated by rents, not markets.</p>
<p>A "rent" is income that you get from owning something that other people need to produce value. Think of renting out a house you own: not only do you get paid when someone pays you to live there, you also get the benefit of rising property values, which are the result of the work that all the other homeowners, business owners, and residents do to make the neighborhood more valuable.</p>
<p>The first capitalists <em>hated</em> rent. They wanted to replace the "passive income" that landowners got from taxing their serfs' harvest with <em>active</em> income from enclosing those lands and grazing sheep in order to get wool to feed to the new textile mills. They wanted <em>active</em> income – and lots of it.</p>
<p>Capitalist philosophers railed against rent. The "free market" of Adam Smith wasn't a market that was free from regulation – it was a market free from <em>rents</em>. The reason Smith railed against monopolists is because he (correctly) understood that once a monopoly emerged, it would become a chokepoint through which a rentier could cream off the profits he considered the capitalist's due:</p>
<p><a href="https://locusmag.com/2021/03/cory-doctorow-free-markets/">https://locusmag.com/2021/03/cory-doctorow-free-markets/</a></p>
<p>Today, we live in a rentier's paradise. People don't aspire to create value – they aspire to capture it. In <em>Survival of the Richest</em>, Doug Rushkoff calls this "going meta": don't provide a service, just figure out a way to interpose yourself between the provider and the customer:</p>
<p><a href="https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/13/collapse-porn/#collapse-porn">https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/13/collapse-porn/#collapse-porn</a></p>
<p>Don't drive a cab, create Uber and extract value from every driver and rider. Better still: don't found Uber, invest in Uber options and extract value from the people who invest in Uber. Even better, invest in <em>derivatives</em> of Uber options and extract value from people extracting value from people investing in Uber, who extract value from drivers and riders. Go meta.</p>
<p>This is your brain on the four-hour-work-week, passive income mind-virus. In <em>Techno Feudalism,</em> Varoufakis deftly describes how the new "Cloud Capital" has created a new generation of rentiers, and how they have become the richest, most powerful people in human history.</p>
<p>Shopping at Amazon is like visiting a bustling city center full of stores – but each of those stores' owners has to pay the majority of every sale to a feudal landlord, Emperor Jeff Bezos, who also decides which goods they can sell and where they must appear on the shelves. Amazon is full of capitalists, but it is not a capitalist enterprise. It's a feudal one:</p>
<p><a href="https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/28/enshittification/#relentless-payola">https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/28/enshittification/#relentless-payola</a></p>
<p>This is the reason that automakers are willing to enshittify their products so comprehensively: they were one of the first industries to decouple rents from profits. Recall that the reason that Big Car needed billions in bailouts in 2008 is that they'd reinvented themselves as loan-sharks who incidentally made cars, lending money to car-buyers and then "securitizing" the loans so they could be traded in the capital markets.</p>
<p>Even though this strategy brought the car companies to the brink of ruin, it paid off in the long run. The car makers got billions in public money, paid their execs massive bonuses, gave billions to shareholders in buybacks and dividends, smashed their unions, fucked their pensioned workers, and shipped jobs anywhere they could pollute and murder their workforce with impunity.</p>
<p>Car companies are on the forefront of postcapitalism, and they understand that digital is the key to rent-extraction. Remember when BMW announced that it was going to rent you the seatwarmer in your own fucking car?</p>
<p><a href="https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/02/big-river/#beemers">https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/02/big-river/#beemers</a></p>
<p>Not to be outdone, Mercedes announced that they were going to rent you your car's <em>accelerator pedal</em>, charging an extra $1200/year to unlock a fully functional acceleration curve:</p>
<p><a href="https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/23/23474969/mercedes-car-subscription-faster-acceleration-feature-price">https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/23/23474969/mercedes-car-subscription-faster-acceleration-feature-price</a></p>
<p>This is the urinary tract infection business model: without digitization, all your car's value flowed in a healthy stream. But once the car-makers add semiconductors, each one of those features comes out in a painful, burning dribble, with every button on that farkakta touchscreen wired directly into your credit-card.</p>
<p>But it's just for starters. Computers are <em>malleable</em>. The only computer we know how to make is the Turing Complete Von Neumann Machine, which can run every program we know how to write. Once they add networked computers to your car, the Car Lords can endlessly twiddle the knobs on the back end, finding new ways to extract value from you:</p>
<p><a href="https://doctorow.medium.com/twiddler-1b5c9690cce6">https://doctorow.medium.com/twiddler-1b5c9690cce6</a></p>
<p>That means that your car can track your every movement, and sell your location data to <em>anyone</em> and <em>everyone</em>, from marketers to bounty-hunters looking to collect fees for tracking down people who travel out of state for abortions to cops to foreign spies:</p>
<p><a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7enex/tool-shows-if-car-selling-data-privacy4cars-vehicle-privacy-report">https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7enex/tool-shows-if-car-selling-data-privacy4cars-vehicle-privacy-report</a></p>
<p>Digitization supercharges financialization. It lets car-makers offer subprime auto-loans to desperate, poor people and then killswitch their cars if they miss a payment:</p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4U2eDJnwz_s">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4U2eDJnwz_s</a></p>
<p>Subprime lending for cars would be a terrible business without computers, but digitization makes it a <em>great</em> source of feudal rents. Car dealers can originate loans to people with teaser rates that quickly blow up into payments the dealer knows their customer can't afford. Then they repo the car and sell it to another desperate person, and another, and another:</p>
<p><a href="https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/27/boricua/#looking-for-the-joke-with-a-microscope">https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/27/boricua/#looking-for-the-joke-with-a-microscope</a></p>
<p>Digitization also opens up more exotic options. Some subprime cars have secondary control systems wired into their entertainment system: miss a payment and your car radio flips to full volume and bellows an unstoppable, unmutable stream of threats. Tesla does one better: your car will lock and immobilize itself, then blare its horn and back out of its parking spot when the repo man arrives:</p>
<p><a href="https://tiremeetsroad.com/2021/03/18/tesla-allegedly-remotely-unlocks-model-3-owners-car-uses-smart-summon-to-help-repo-agent/">https://tiremeetsroad.com/2021/03/18/tesla-allegedly-remotely-unlocks-model-3-owners-car-uses-smart-summon-to-help-repo-agent/</a></p>
<p>Digital feudalism hasn't stopped innovating – it's just stopped innovating <em>good</em> things. The digital device is an endless source of sadistic novelties, like the cellphones that disable your most-used app the first day you're late on a payment, then work their way down the other apps you rely on for every day you're late:</p>
<p><a href="https://restofworld.org/2021/loans-that-hijack-your-phone-are-coming-to-india/">https://restofworld.org/2021/loans-that-hijack-your-phone-are-coming-to-india/</a></p>
<p>Usurers have always relied on this kind of imaginative intimidation. The loan-shark's arm-breaker knows you're never going to get off the hook; his goal is in intimidating you into paying his boss <em>first</em>, liquidating your house and your kid's college fund and your wedding ring before you default and he throws you off a building.</p>
<p>Thanks to the malleability of computerized systems, digital arm-breakers have an endless array of options they can deploy to motivate you into paying them first, no matter what it costs you:</p>
<p><a href="https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/02/innovation-unlocks-markets/#digital-arm-breakers">https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/02/innovation-unlocks-markets/#digital-arm-breakers</a></p>
<p>Car-makers are trailblazers in imaginative rent-extraction. Take VIN-locking: this is the practice of adding cheap microchips to engine components that communicate with the car's overall network. After a new part is installed in your car, your car's computer does a complex cryptographic handshake with the part that requires an unlock code provided by an authorized technician. If the code isn't entered, the car refuses to use that part.</p>
<p>VIN-locking has exploded in popularity. It's in your iPhone, preventing you from using refurb or third-party replacement parts:</p>
<p><a href="https://doctorow.medium.com/apples-cement-overshoes-329856288d13">https://doctorow.medium.com/apples-cement-overshoes-329856288d13</a></p>
<p>It's in fuckin' <em>ventilators</em>, which was a nightmare during lockdown as hospital techs nursed their precious ventilators along by swapping parts from dead systems into serviceable ones:</p>
<p><a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/3azv9b/why-repair-techs-are-hacking-ventilators-with-diy-dongles-from-poland">https://www.vice.com/en/article/3azv9b/why-repair-techs-are-hacking-ventilators-with-diy-dongles-from-poland</a></p>
<p>And of course, it's in tractors, along with other forms of remote killswitch. Remember that feelgood story about John Deere bricking the looted Ukrainian tractors whose snitch-chips showed they'd been relocated to Russia?</p>
<p><a href="https://doctorow.medium.com/about-those-kill-switched-ukrainian-tractors-bc93f471b9c8">https://doctorow.medium.com/about-those-kill-switched-ukrainian-tractors-bc93f471b9c8</a></p>
<p>That wasn't a happy story – it was a cautionary tale. After all, John Deere now controls the majority of the world's agricultural future, and they've boobytrapped those ubiquitous tractors with killswitches that can be activated by anyone who hacks, takes over, or suborns Deere or its dealerships.</p>
<p>Control over repair isn't limited to gouging customers on parts and service. When a company gets to decide whether your device can be fixed, it can fuck you over in all <em>kinds</em> of ways. Back in 2019, Tim Apple told his shareholders to expect lower revenues because people were opting to fix their phones rather than replace them:</p>
<p><a href="https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/01/letter-from-tim-cook-to-apple-investors/">https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/01/letter-from-tim-cook-to-apple-investors/</a></p>
<p>By usurping your right to decide who fixes your phone, Apple gets to decide whether you can fix it, or whether you must replace it. Problem solved – and not just for Apple, but for car makers, tractor makers, ventilator makers and more. Apple leads on this, even ahead of Big Car, pioneering a "recycling" program that sees trade-in phones <em>shredded</em> so they can't possibly be diverted from an e-waste dump and mined for parts:</p>
<p><a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/yp73jw/apple-recycling-iphones-macbooks">https://www.vice.com/en/article/yp73jw/apple-recycling-iphones-macbooks</a></p>
<p>John Deere isn't sleeping on this. They've come up with a valuable treasure they extract when they win the Right-to-Repair: Deere singles out farmers who complain about its policies and refuses to repair their tractors, stranding them with six-figure, two-ton paperweights:</p>
<p><a href="https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/31/dealers-choice/#be-a-shame-if-something-were-to-happen-to-it">https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/31/dealers-choice/#be-a-shame-if-something-were-to-happen-to-it</a></p>
<p>The repair wars are just a skirmish in a vast, invisible fight that's been waged for decades: the War On General-Purpose Computing, where tech companies use the law to make it illegal for you to reconfigure your devices so they serve you, rather than their shareholders:</p>
<p><a href="https://memex.craphound.com/2012/01/10/lockdown-the-coming-war-on-general-purpose-computing/">https://memex.craphound.com/2012/01/10/lockdown-the-coming-war-on-general-purpose-computing/</a></p>
<p>The force behind this army is vast and grows larger every day. General purpose computers are antithetical to technofeudalism – all the rents extracted by technofeudalists would go away if others (tinkereres, co-ops, even capitalists!) were allowed to reconfigure our devices so they serve <em>us</em>.</p>
<p>You've probably noticed the skirmishes with inkjet printer makers, who can only force you to buy their ink at 20,000% markups if they can stop you from deciding how your printer is configured:</p>
<p><a href="https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/07/inky-wretches/#epson-salty">https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/07/inky-wretches/#epson-salty</a></p>
<p>But we're also fighting against insulin pump makers, who want to turn people with diabetes into walking inkjet printers:</p>
<p><a href="https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/10/loopers/#hp-ification">https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/10/loopers/#hp-ification</a></p>
<p>And companies that make powered wheelchairs:</p>
<p><a href="https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/08/chair-ish/#r2r">https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/08/chair-ish/#r2r</a></p>
<p>These companies start with people who have the least agency and social power and wreck their lives, then work their way up the privilege gradient, coming for everyone else. It's called the "shitty technology adoption curve":</p>
<p><a href="https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/21/great-taylors-ghost/#solidarity-or-bust">https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/21/great-taylors-ghost/#solidarity-or-bust</a></p>
<p>Technofeudalism is the public-private-partnership from hell, emerging from a combination of state and private action. On the one hand, bailing out bankers and big business (rather than workers) after the 2008 crash and the covid lockdown decoupled income from profits. Companies that spent billions more than they earned were still wildly profitable, thanks to those public funds.</p>
<p>But there's also a policy dimension here. Some of those rentiers' billions were mobilized to both deconstruct antitrust law (allowing bigger and bigger companies and cartels) and to expand "IP" law, turning "IP" into a toolsuite for controlling the conduct of a firm's competitors, critics and customers:</p>
<p><a href="https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/">https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/</a></p>
<p>IP is key to understanding the rise of technofeudalism. The same malleability that allows companies to "twiddle" the knobs on their services and keep us on the hook as they reel us in would hypothetically allow us to <em>countertwiddle</em>, seizing the means of computation:</p>
<p><a href="https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men">https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men</a></p>
<p>The thing that stands between you and an alternative app store, an interoperable social media network that you can escape to while continuing to message the friends you left behind, or a car that anyone can fix or unlock features for is IP, not technology. Under capitalism, that technology would <em>already</em> exist, because capitalists have no loyalty to one another and view each other's margins as their own opportunities.</p>
<p>But under technofeudalism, control comes from rents (owning things), not profits (selling things). The capitalist who wants to participate in your iPhone's "ecosystem" has to make apps and submit them to Apple, along with 30% of their lifetime revenues – they don't get to sell you jailbreaking kit that lets you choose their app store.</p>
<p>Rent-seeking technology has a holy grail: control over "ring zero" – the ability to compel you to configure your computer to a feudalist's specifications, and to verify that you haven't altered your computer after it came into your possession:</p>
<p><a href="https://pluralistic.net/2022/01/30/ring-minus-one/#drm-political-economy">https://pluralistic.net/2022/01/30/ring-minus-one/#drm-political-economy</a></p>
<p>For more than two decades, various would-be feudal lords and their court sorcerers have been pitching ways of doing this, of varying degrees of outlandishness.</p>
<p>At core, here's what they envision: inside your computer, they will nest <em>another</em> computer, one that is designed to run a very simple set of programs, none of which can be altered once it leaves the factory. This computer – either a whole separate chip called a "Trusted Platform Module" or a region of your main processor called a secure enclave – can tally observations about your computer: which operating system, modules and programs it's running.</p>
<p>Then it can cryptographically "sign" these observations, proving that they were made by a secure chip and not by something you could have modified. Then you can send this signed "attestation" to someone else, who can use it to determine how your computer is configured and thus whether to trust it. This is called "remote attestation."</p>
<p>There are some cool things you can do with remote attestation: for example, two strangers playing a networked video game together can use attestations to make sure neither is running any cheat modules. Or you could require your cloud computing provider to use attestations that they aren't stealing your data from the server you're renting. Or if you suspect that your computer has been infected with malware, you can connect to someone else and send them an attestation that they can use to figure out whether you should trust it.</p>
<p>Today, there's a cool remote attestation technology called "Privacy Pass" that replaces CAPTCHAs by having you prove to your own device that you are a human. When a server wants to make sure you're a person, it sends a random number to your device, which signs that number along with its promise that it is acting on behalf of a human being, and sends it back. CAPTCHAs are all kinds of bad – bad for accessibility and privacy – and this is really great.</p>
<p>But the billions that have been thrown at remote attestation over the decades is only incidentally about solving CAPTCHAs or verifying your cloud server. The holy grail here is being able to make sure that you're not running an ad-blocker. It's being able to remotely verify that you haven't disabled the bossware your employer requires. It's the power to block someone from opening an Office365 doc with LibreOffice. It's your boss's ability to ensure that you haven't modified your messaging client to disable disappearing messages before he sends you an auto-destructing memo ordering you to break the law.</p>
<p>And there's a new remote attestation technology making the rounds: Google's Web Environment Integrity, which will leverage Google's dominance over browsers to allow websites to block users who run ad-blockers:</p>
<p><a href="https://github.com/RupertBenWiser/Web-Environment-Integrity">https://github.com/RupertBenWiser/Web-Environment-Integrity</a></p>
<p>There's plenty else WEI can do (it would make detecting ad-fraud much easier), but for every legitimate use, there are a hundred ways this could be abused. It's a technology purpose-built to allow rent extraction by stripping us of our right to technological self-determination.</p>
<p>Releasing a technology like this into a world where companies are willing to make their products less reliable, less attractive, less safe and less resilient in pursuit of rents is incredibly reckless and shortsighted. You want unauthorized bread? This is how you get Unauthorized Bread:</p>
<p><a href="https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-near-future-tale-of-refugees-and-sinister-iot-appliances/amp/">https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-near-future-tale-of-refugees-and-sinister-iot-appliances/amp/</a></p>
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title: Pluralistic: Autoenshittification (24 July 2023)
url: https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/
hash_url: 8be5d8a651e8f8e211cfe10fd49bb3f0

<p>Forget F1: the only car race that matters now is the race to turn your car into a digital extraction machine, a high-speed inkjet printer on wheels, stealing your private data as it picks your pocket. Your car's digital infrastructure is a costly, dangerous nightmare – but for automakers in pursuit of postcapitalist utopia, it's a dream they can't give up on.</p>
<p>Your car is <em>stuffed</em> full of microchips, a fact the world came to appreciate after the pandemic struck and auto production ground to a halt due to chip shortages. Of course, that wasn't the whole story: when the pandemic started, the automakers panicked and canceled their chip orders, only to immediately regret that decision and place new orders.</p>
<p>But it was too late: semiconductor production had taken a serious body-blow, and when Big Car placed its new chip orders, it went to the back of a long, slow-moving line. It was a catastrophic bungle: microchips are so integral to car production that a car is basically a computer network on wheels that you stick your fragile human body into and pray.</p>
<p>The car manufacturers got <em>so</em> desperate for chips that they started buying up <em>washing machines</em> for the microchips in them, extracting the chips and discarding the washing machines like some absurdo-dystopian cyberpunk walnut-shelling machine:</p>
<p><a href="https://www.autoevolution.com/news/desperate-times-companies-buy-washing-machines-just-to-rip-out-the-chips-187033.html">https://www.autoevolution.com/news/desperate-times-companies-buy-washing-machines-just-to-rip-out-the-chips-187033.html</a></p>
<p>These digital systems are a huge problem for the car companies. They are the underlying cause of a precipitous decline in car quality. From touch-based digital door-locks to networked sensors and cameras, every digital system in your car is a source of endless repair nightmares, costly recalls and cybersecurity vulnerabilities:</p>
<p><a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/quality-new-vehicles-us-declining-more-tech-use-study-shows-2023-06-22/">https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/quality-new-vehicles-us-declining-more-tech-use-study-shows-2023-06-22/</a></p>
<p>What's more, drivers <em>hate</em> all the digital bullshit, from the janky touchscreens to the shitty, wildly insecure apps. Digital systems are drivers' most significant point of dissatisfaction with the automakers' products:</p>
<p><a href="https://www.theverge.com/23801545/car-infotainment-customer-satisifaction-survey-jd-power">https://www.theverge.com/23801545/car-infotainment-customer-satisifaction-survey-jd-power</a></p>
<p>Even the automakers sorta-kinda admit that this is a problem. Back in 2020 when Massachusetts was having a Right-to-Repair ballot initiative, Big Car ran these <em>unfuckingbelievable</em> scare ads that basically said, "Your car spies on you so comprehensively that giving anyone else access to its systems will let murderers stalk you to your home and <em>kill you</em>:</p>
<p><a href="https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/03/rip-david-graeber/#rolling-surveillance-platforms">https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/03/rip-david-graeber/#rolling-surveillance-platforms</a></p>
<p>But even amid all the complaining about cars getting stuck in the Internet of Shit, there's still not much discussion of <em>why</em> the car-makers are making their products less attractive, less reliable, less safe, and less resilient by stuffing them full of microchips. Are car execs just the latest generation of rubes who've been suckered by Silicon Valley bullshit and convinced that apps are a magic path to profitability?</p>
<p>Nope. Car execs are sophisticated businesspeople, and they're surfing capitalism's latest – and last – hot trend: dismantling capitalism itself.</p>
<p>Now, leftists have been predicting the death of capitalism since <em>The Communist Manifesto</em>, but even Marx and Engels warned us not to get too frisky: capitalism, they wrote, is endlessly creative, constantly reinventing itself, re-emerging from each crisis in a new form that is perfectly adapted to the post-crisis reality:</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/31/books/review/a-spectre-haunting-china-mieville.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/31/books/review/a-spectre-haunting-china-mieville.html</a></p>
<p>But capitalism has finally run out of gas. In his forthcoming book, <em>Techno Feudalism: What Killed Capitalism</em>, Yanis Varoufakis proposes that capitalism has died – but it wasn't replaced by socialism. Rather, capitalism has given way to <em>feudalism</em>:</p>
<p><a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/451795/technofeudalism-by-varoufakis-yanis/9781847927279">https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/451795/technofeudalism-by-varoufakis-yanis/9781847927279</a></p>
<p>Under capitalism, capital is the prime mover. The people who own and mobilize capital – the capitalists – organize the economy and take the lion's share of its returns. But it wasn't always this way: for hundreds of years, European civilization was dominated by rents, not markets.</p>
<p>A "rent" is income that you get from owning something that other people need to produce value. Think of renting out a house you own: not only do you get paid when someone pays you to live there, you also get the benefit of rising property values, which are the result of the work that all the other homeowners, business owners, and residents do to make the neighborhood more valuable.</p>
<p>The first capitalists <em>hated</em> rent. They wanted to replace the "passive income" that landowners got from taxing their serfs' harvest with <em>active</em> income from enclosing those lands and grazing sheep in order to get wool to feed to the new textile mills. They wanted <em>active</em> income – and lots of it.</p>
<p>Capitalist philosophers railed against rent. The "free market" of Adam Smith wasn't a market that was free from regulation – it was a market free from <em>rents</em>. The reason Smith railed against monopolists is because he (correctly) understood that once a monopoly emerged, it would become a chokepoint through which a rentier could cream off the profits he considered the capitalist's due:</p>
<p><a href="https://locusmag.com/2021/03/cory-doctorow-free-markets/">https://locusmag.com/2021/03/cory-doctorow-free-markets/</a></p>
<p>Today, we live in a rentier's paradise. People don't aspire to create value – they aspire to capture it. In <em>Survival of the Richest</em>, Doug Rushkoff calls this "going meta": don't provide a service, just figure out a way to interpose yourself between the provider and the customer:</p>
<p><a href="https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/13/collapse-porn/#collapse-porn">https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/13/collapse-porn/#collapse-porn</a></p>
<p>Don't drive a cab, create Uber and extract value from every driver and rider. Better still: don't found Uber, invest in Uber options and extract value from the people who invest in Uber. Even better, invest in <em>derivatives</em> of Uber options and extract value from people extracting value from people investing in Uber, who extract value from drivers and riders. Go meta.</p>
<p>This is your brain on the four-hour-work-week, passive income mind-virus. In <em>Techno Feudalism,</em> Varoufakis deftly describes how the new "Cloud Capital" has created a new generation of rentiers, and how they have become the richest, most powerful people in human history.</p>
<p>Shopping at Amazon is like visiting a bustling city center full of stores – but each of those stores' owners has to pay the majority of every sale to a feudal landlord, Emperor Jeff Bezos, who also decides which goods they can sell and where they must appear on the shelves. Amazon is full of capitalists, but it is not a capitalist enterprise. It's a feudal one:</p>
<p><a href="https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/28/enshittification/#relentless-payola">https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/28/enshittification/#relentless-payola</a></p>
<p>This is the reason that automakers are willing to enshittify their products so comprehensively: they were one of the first industries to decouple rents from profits. Recall that the reason that Big Car needed billions in bailouts in 2008 is that they'd reinvented themselves as loan-sharks who incidentally made cars, lending money to car-buyers and then "securitizing" the loans so they could be traded in the capital markets.</p>
<p>Even though this strategy brought the car companies to the brink of ruin, it paid off in the long run. The car makers got billions in public money, paid their execs massive bonuses, gave billions to shareholders in buybacks and dividends, smashed their unions, fucked their pensioned workers, and shipped jobs anywhere they could pollute and murder their workforce with impunity.</p>
<p>Car companies are on the forefront of postcapitalism, and they understand that digital is the key to rent-extraction. Remember when BMW announced that it was going to rent you the seatwarmer in your own fucking car?</p>
<p><a href="https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/02/big-river/#beemers">https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/02/big-river/#beemers</a></p>
<p>Not to be outdone, Mercedes announced that they were going to rent you your car's <em>accelerator pedal</em>, charging an extra $1200/year to unlock a fully functional acceleration curve:</p>
<p><a href="https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/23/23474969/mercedes-car-subscription-faster-acceleration-feature-price">https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/23/23474969/mercedes-car-subscription-faster-acceleration-feature-price</a></p>
<p>This is the urinary tract infection business model: without digitization, all your car's value flowed in a healthy stream. But once the car-makers add semiconductors, each one of those features comes out in a painful, burning dribble, with every button on that farkakta touchscreen wired directly into your credit-card.</p>
<p>But it's just for starters. Computers are <em>malleable</em>. The only computer we know how to make is the Turing Complete Von Neumann Machine, which can run every program we know how to write. Once they add networked computers to your car, the Car Lords can endlessly twiddle the knobs on the back end, finding new ways to extract value from you:</p>
<p><a href="https://doctorow.medium.com/twiddler-1b5c9690cce6">https://doctorow.medium.com/twiddler-1b5c9690cce6</a></p>
<p>That means that your car can track your every movement, and sell your location data to <em>anyone</em> and <em>everyone</em>, from marketers to bounty-hunters looking to collect fees for tracking down people who travel out of state for abortions to cops to foreign spies:</p>
<p><a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7enex/tool-shows-if-car-selling-data-privacy4cars-vehicle-privacy-report">https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7enex/tool-shows-if-car-selling-data-privacy4cars-vehicle-privacy-report</a></p>
<p>Digitization supercharges financialization. It lets car-makers offer subprime auto-loans to desperate, poor people and then killswitch their cars if they miss a payment:</p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4U2eDJnwz_s">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4U2eDJnwz_s</a></p>
<p>Subprime lending for cars would be a terrible business without computers, but digitization makes it a <em>great</em> source of feudal rents. Car dealers can originate loans to people with teaser rates that quickly blow up into payments the dealer knows their customer can't afford. Then they repo the car and sell it to another desperate person, and another, and another:</p>
<p><a href="https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/27/boricua/#looking-for-the-joke-with-a-microscope">https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/27/boricua/#looking-for-the-joke-with-a-microscope</a></p>
<p>Digitization also opens up more exotic options. Some subprime cars have secondary control systems wired into their entertainment system: miss a payment and your car radio flips to full volume and bellows an unstoppable, unmutable stream of threats. Tesla does one better: your car will lock and immobilize itself, then blare its horn and back out of its parking spot when the repo man arrives:</p>
<p><a href="https://tiremeetsroad.com/2021/03/18/tesla-allegedly-remotely-unlocks-model-3-owners-car-uses-smart-summon-to-help-repo-agent/">https://tiremeetsroad.com/2021/03/18/tesla-allegedly-remotely-unlocks-model-3-owners-car-uses-smart-summon-to-help-repo-agent/</a></p>
<p>Digital feudalism hasn't stopped innovating – it's just stopped innovating <em>good</em> things. The digital device is an endless source of sadistic novelties, like the cellphones that disable your most-used app the first day you're late on a payment, then work their way down the other apps you rely on for every day you're late:</p>
<p><a href="https://restofworld.org/2021/loans-that-hijack-your-phone-are-coming-to-india/">https://restofworld.org/2021/loans-that-hijack-your-phone-are-coming-to-india/</a></p>
<p>Usurers have always relied on this kind of imaginative intimidation. The loan-shark's arm-breaker knows you're never going to get off the hook; his goal is in intimidating you into paying his boss <em>first</em>, liquidating your house and your kid's college fund and your wedding ring before you default and he throws you off a building.</p>
<p>Thanks to the malleability of computerized systems, digital arm-breakers have an endless array of options they can deploy to motivate you into paying them first, no matter what it costs you:</p>
<p><a href="https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/02/innovation-unlocks-markets/#digital-arm-breakers">https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/02/innovation-unlocks-markets/#digital-arm-breakers</a></p>
<p>Car-makers are trailblazers in imaginative rent-extraction. Take VIN-locking: this is the practice of adding cheap microchips to engine components that communicate with the car's overall network. After a new part is installed in your car, your car's computer does a complex cryptographic handshake with the part that requires an unlock code provided by an authorized technician. If the code isn't entered, the car refuses to use that part.</p>
<p>VIN-locking has exploded in popularity. It's in your iPhone, preventing you from using refurb or third-party replacement parts:</p>
<p><a href="https://doctorow.medium.com/apples-cement-overshoes-329856288d13">https://doctorow.medium.com/apples-cement-overshoes-329856288d13</a></p>
<p>It's in fuckin' <em>ventilators</em>, which was a nightmare during lockdown as hospital techs nursed their precious ventilators along by swapping parts from dead systems into serviceable ones:</p>
<p><a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/3azv9b/why-repair-techs-are-hacking-ventilators-with-diy-dongles-from-poland">https://www.vice.com/en/article/3azv9b/why-repair-techs-are-hacking-ventilators-with-diy-dongles-from-poland</a></p>
<p>And of course, it's in tractors, along with other forms of remote killswitch. Remember that feelgood story about John Deere bricking the looted Ukrainian tractors whose snitch-chips showed they'd been relocated to Russia?</p>
<p><a href="https://doctorow.medium.com/about-those-kill-switched-ukrainian-tractors-bc93f471b9c8">https://doctorow.medium.com/about-those-kill-switched-ukrainian-tractors-bc93f471b9c8</a></p>
<p>That wasn't a happy story – it was a cautionary tale. After all, John Deere now controls the majority of the world's agricultural future, and they've boobytrapped those ubiquitous tractors with killswitches that can be activated by anyone who hacks, takes over, or suborns Deere or its dealerships.</p>
<p>Control over repair isn't limited to gouging customers on parts and service. When a company gets to decide whether your device can be fixed, it can fuck you over in all <em>kinds</em> of ways. Back in 2019, Tim Apple told his shareholders to expect lower revenues because people were opting to fix their phones rather than replace them:</p>
<p><a href="https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/01/letter-from-tim-cook-to-apple-investors/">https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/01/letter-from-tim-cook-to-apple-investors/</a></p>
<p>By usurping your right to decide who fixes your phone, Apple gets to decide whether you can fix it, or whether you must replace it. Problem solved – and not just for Apple, but for car makers, tractor makers, ventilator makers and more. Apple leads on this, even ahead of Big Car, pioneering a "recycling" program that sees trade-in phones <em>shredded</em> so they can't possibly be diverted from an e-waste dump and mined for parts:</p>
<p><a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/yp73jw/apple-recycling-iphones-macbooks">https://www.vice.com/en/article/yp73jw/apple-recycling-iphones-macbooks</a></p>
<p>John Deere isn't sleeping on this. They've come up with a valuable treasure they extract when they win the Right-to-Repair: Deere singles out farmers who complain about its policies and refuses to repair their tractors, stranding them with six-figure, two-ton paperweights:</p>
<p><a href="https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/31/dealers-choice/#be-a-shame-if-something-were-to-happen-to-it">https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/31/dealers-choice/#be-a-shame-if-something-were-to-happen-to-it</a></p>
<p>The repair wars are just a skirmish in a vast, invisible fight that's been waged for decades: the War On General-Purpose Computing, where tech companies use the law to make it illegal for you to reconfigure your devices so they serve you, rather than their shareholders:</p>
<p><a href="https://memex.craphound.com/2012/01/10/lockdown-the-coming-war-on-general-purpose-computing/">https://memex.craphound.com/2012/01/10/lockdown-the-coming-war-on-general-purpose-computing/</a></p>
<p>The force behind this army is vast and grows larger every day. General purpose computers are antithetical to technofeudalism – all the rents extracted by technofeudalists would go away if others (tinkereres, co-ops, even capitalists!) were allowed to reconfigure our devices so they serve <em>us</em>.</p>
<p>You've probably noticed the skirmishes with inkjet printer makers, who can only force you to buy their ink at 20,000% markups if they can stop you from deciding how your printer is configured:</p>
<p><a href="https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/07/inky-wretches/#epson-salty">https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/07/inky-wretches/#epson-salty</a></p>
<p>But we're also fighting against insulin pump makers, who want to turn people with diabetes into walking inkjet printers:</p>
<p><a href="https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/10/loopers/#hp-ification">https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/10/loopers/#hp-ification</a></p>
<p>And companies that make powered wheelchairs:</p>
<p><a href="https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/08/chair-ish/#r2r">https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/08/chair-ish/#r2r</a></p>
<p>These companies start with people who have the least agency and social power and wreck their lives, then work their way up the privilege gradient, coming for everyone else. It's called the "shitty technology adoption curve":</p>
<p><a href="https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/21/great-taylors-ghost/#solidarity-or-bust">https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/21/great-taylors-ghost/#solidarity-or-bust</a></p>
<p>Technofeudalism is the public-private-partnership from hell, emerging from a combination of state and private action. On the one hand, bailing out bankers and big business (rather than workers) after the 2008 crash and the covid lockdown decoupled income from profits. Companies that spent billions more than they earned were still wildly profitable, thanks to those public funds.</p>
<p>But there's also a policy dimension here. Some of those rentiers' billions were mobilized to both deconstruct antitrust law (allowing bigger and bigger companies and cartels) and to expand "IP" law, turning "IP" into a toolsuite for controlling the conduct of a firm's competitors, critics and customers:</p>
<p><a href="https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/">https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/</a></p>
<p>IP is key to understanding the rise of technofeudalism. The same malleability that allows companies to "twiddle" the knobs on their services and keep us on the hook as they reel us in would hypothetically allow us to <em>countertwiddle</em>, seizing the means of computation:</p>
<p><a href="https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men">https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men</a></p>
<p>The thing that stands between you and an alternative app store, an interoperable social media network that you can escape to while continuing to message the friends you left behind, or a car that anyone can fix or unlock features for is IP, not technology. Under capitalism, that technology would <em>already</em> exist, because capitalists have no loyalty to one another and view each other's margins as their own opportunities.</p>
<p>But under technofeudalism, control comes from rents (owning things), not profits (selling things). The capitalist who wants to participate in your iPhone's "ecosystem" has to make apps and submit them to Apple, along with 30% of their lifetime revenues – they don't get to sell you jailbreaking kit that lets you choose their app store.</p>
<p>Rent-seeking technology has a holy grail: control over "ring zero" – the ability to compel you to configure your computer to a feudalist's specifications, and to verify that you haven't altered your computer after it came into your possession:</p>
<p><a href="https://pluralistic.net/2022/01/30/ring-minus-one/#drm-political-economy">https://pluralistic.net/2022/01/30/ring-minus-one/#drm-political-economy</a></p>
<p>For more than two decades, various would-be feudal lords and their court sorcerers have been pitching ways of doing this, of varying degrees of outlandishness.</p>
<p>At core, here's what they envision: inside your computer, they will nest <em>another</em> computer, one that is designed to run a very simple set of programs, none of which can be altered once it leaves the factory. This computer – either a whole separate chip called a "Trusted Platform Module" or a region of your main processor called a secure enclave – can tally observations about your computer: which operating system, modules and programs it's running.</p>
<p>Then it can cryptographically "sign" these observations, proving that they were made by a secure chip and not by something you could have modified. Then you can send this signed "attestation" to someone else, who can use it to determine how your computer is configured and thus whether to trust it. This is called "remote attestation."</p>
<p>There are some cool things you can do with remote attestation: for example, two strangers playing a networked video game together can use attestations to make sure neither is running any cheat modules. Or you could require your cloud computing provider to use attestations that they aren't stealing your data from the server you're renting. Or if you suspect that your computer has been infected with malware, you can connect to someone else and send them an attestation that they can use to figure out whether you should trust it.</p>
<p>Today, there's a cool remote attestation technology called "Privacy Pass" that replaces CAPTCHAs by having you prove to your own device that you are a human. When a server wants to make sure you're a person, it sends a random number to your device, which signs that number along with its promise that it is acting on behalf of a human being, and sends it back. CAPTCHAs are all kinds of bad – bad for accessibility and privacy – and this is really great.</p>
<p>But the billions that have been thrown at remote attestation over the decades is only incidentally about solving CAPTCHAs or verifying your cloud server. The holy grail here is being able to make sure that you're not running an ad-blocker. It's being able to remotely verify that you haven't disabled the bossware your employer requires. It's the power to block someone from opening an Office365 doc with LibreOffice. It's your boss's ability to ensure that you haven't modified your messaging client to disable disappearing messages before he sends you an auto-destructing memo ordering you to break the law.</p>
<p>And there's a new remote attestation technology making the rounds: Google's Web Environment Integrity, which will leverage Google's dominance over browsers to allow websites to block users who run ad-blockers:</p>
<p><a href="https://github.com/RupertBenWiser/Web-Environment-Integrity">https://github.com/RupertBenWiser/Web-Environment-Integrity</a></p>
<p>There's plenty else WEI can do (it would make detecting ad-fraud much easier), but for every legitimate use, there are a hundred ways this could be abused. It's a technology purpose-built to allow rent extraction by stripping us of our right to technological self-determination.</p>
<p>Releasing a technology like this into a world where companies are willing to make their products less reliable, less attractive, less safe and less resilient in pursuit of rents is incredibly reckless and shortsighted. You want unauthorized bread? This is how you get Unauthorized Bread:</p>
<p><a href="https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-near-future-tale-of-refugees-and-sinister-iot-appliances/amp/">https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-near-future-tale-of-refugees-and-sinister-iot-appliances/amp/</a></p>

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<h1>Watching The World Burn on Our Phones</h1>
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<p>There's this play by Eugene Ionesco called, "Rhinoceros."</p>
<p>You should read it sometime.</p>
<p>It's about an ordinary dude named Berenger, a Lebowski type who drinks too much and never shows up anywhere on time. Things get interesting when he meets up with a friend for coffee, but their conversation gets interrupted when...yep... a rhinoceros charges through the town square. Over the course of three acts, Berenger watches everyone he cares about, including the woman he loves, transform into a rhinoceros.</p>
<p>Nobody believes him.</p>
<p>The transformation into a rhinoceros starts off with a mild cold. As people transform, they get cranky and aggressive. They accuse Berenger of paranoia. They tell him to stop obsessing over rhinos.</p>
<p>They lose all their empathy.</p>
<p>They start talking about letting everyone live their own lives and getting back to normal. It's ironic, because after they transform, all a rhinoceros wants to do is chase people down and turn them.</p>
<p>Scholars have described the play as a metaphor for the spread of fascism, but it applies to a lot of situations these days. I never thought I'd live through something like that, and yet here we are.</p>
<p>The heat index hit 120F (48.9C) today. Honestly, it doesn't feel that bad. I've gotten used to it. I get out and walk in this every day.</p>
<p>I know, it could kill me.</p>
<p>We're in the middle of a Covid surge, but almost nobody wants to talk about it. We all know someone who doesn't know anyone with Long Covid. Suddenly people who were in the ICU have no memory of it, or they pretend they were never sick. People are forgetting entire conversations.</p>
<p>Sometimes, even the media can't help but report on the undercurrent of fatigue and resentment that pervades public life.</p>
<p>Everything feels... off.</p>
<p>There's no end to the depressing stories. An entire town burns down during a firestorm. Teachers mock disabled children. Schools punish kids for talking during lunch. They're replacing libraries with detention centers.</p>
<p>Newspapers publish stories about experts "baffled" by sudden spikes in heart attacks and chronic illness. They blame environmentalists for holding up progress on renewable energy. They report on labor shortages and broken supply chains. Then they report on the avalanche of studies showing the organ and brain damage caused by the disease everyone wants to ignore. They want to hold everyone accountable <em>except </em>the ones responsible.</p>
<p>They're pulling a rhino.</p>
<p>There's a relentless pressure to act happy now. You have to go to the office. You have to go to bars and restaurants. You have to go to concerts. You have to go on vacation. You have to post about it.</p>
<p>You have to talk to strangers.</p>
<p>But...</p>
<p>You can't talk about all the friends and family you've lost. You can't talk about how tired you are. You can't talk about politics. You can't talk about climate change. You can't talk about the wildfires or that town that burned down. You can't talk about living through the hottest days in human history. You can't talk about masks or air purifiers. You can't talk about student loans. You can't talk about the wars we're fighting or getting ready to fight.</p>
<p>You can't talk about anything that matters.</p>
<p>You can only talk about the latest shitty superhero movie. You can talk about Barbie. You can talk about celebrity gossip. You can talk about the vacation you pretended to enjoy. You can talk about yoga.</p>
<p>You can talk about your morning routine.</p>
<p>You can talk about sports.</p>
<p>The conspiracy theories are getting even crazier. Now people don't believe in viruses at all. They don't believe in polio. They don't believe in the flu. They don't even believe droughts are real anymore. They believe the government is hiding endless supplies of clean water deep underground. They believe the government is starting fires with space lasers.</p>
<p>They're turning into rhinos.</p>
<p>There's a reason why everyone's so tired and miserable. It's not because of climate change. It's not because of the pandemic. It's because of this tedious, soul-sucking normal we're forcing each other to endure.</p>
<p>It doesn't have to be like this.</p>
<p>We don't have to turn into rhinos. We could ditch this normal for something else. All we have to do is stop pretending.</p>
<p>It would be easy.</p>
<p>We have the knowledge and tools to survive. We could build tiny houses for everyone. We could build root cellars. We could build earth tubes. We could leave these shitty jobs and ugly McMansions in the desert. We could localize our supply chains. We could let go of beef. We could build rain catchment systems. We could get around on carts and bicycles.</p>
<p>We could ration energy and electricity.</p>
<p>We could be happy.</p>
<p>We're not miserable because of viruses or heat indexes. We're miserable because this system forces us to participate in our own destruction. We're miserable because we know deep down that we're in trouble, that we have to adapt, but we're still expected to sling lattes for assholes, all the way up until the moment a wildfire or a flood engulfs our neighborhood.</p>
<p>We're miserable because we're forced to watch the world burn on our phones, and then we're accused of doomscrolling.</p>
<p>Isn't that something?</p>

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title: Watching The World Burn on Our Phones
url: https://www.okdoomer.io/watching-the-world-burn-on-our-phones/
hash_url: 977dc3c51f364f41db786f881d2c3fd2

<p>There's this play by Eugene Ionesco called, "Rhinoceros."</p>
<p>You should read it sometime.</p>
<p>It's about an ordinary dude named Berenger, a Lebowski type who drinks too much and never shows up anywhere on time. Things get interesting when he meets up with a friend for coffee, but their conversation gets interrupted when...yep... a rhinoceros charges through the town square. Over the course of three acts, Berenger watches everyone he cares about, including the woman he loves, transform into a rhinoceros.</p>
<p>Nobody believes him.</p>
<p>The transformation into a rhinoceros starts off with a mild cold. As people transform, they get cranky and aggressive. They accuse Berenger of paranoia. They tell him to stop obsessing over rhinos.</p>
<p>They lose all their empathy.</p>
<p>They start talking about letting everyone live their own lives and getting back to normal. It's ironic, because after they transform, all a rhinoceros wants to do is chase people down and turn them.</p>
<p>Scholars have described the play as a metaphor for the spread of fascism, but it applies to a lot of situations these days. I never thought I'd live through something like that, and yet here we are.</p>
<p>The heat index hit 120F (48.9C) today. Honestly, it doesn't feel that bad. I've gotten used to it. I get out and walk in this every day.</p>
<p>I know, it could kill me.</p>
<p>We're in the middle of a Covid surge, but almost nobody wants to talk about it. We all know someone who doesn't know anyone with Long Covid. Suddenly people who were in the ICU have no memory of it, or they pretend they were never sick. People are forgetting entire conversations.</p>
<p>Sometimes, even the media can't help but report on the undercurrent of fatigue and resentment that pervades public life.</p>
<p>Everything feels... off.</p>
<p>There's no end to the depressing stories. An entire town burns down during a firestorm. Teachers mock disabled children. Schools punish kids for talking during lunch. They're replacing libraries with detention centers.</p>
<p>Newspapers publish stories about experts "baffled" by sudden spikes in heart attacks and chronic illness. They blame environmentalists for holding up progress on renewable energy. They report on labor shortages and broken supply chains. Then they report on the avalanche of studies showing the organ and brain damage caused by the disease everyone wants to ignore. They want to hold everyone accountable <em>except </em>the ones responsible.</p>
<p>They're pulling a rhino.</p>
<p>There's a relentless pressure to act happy now. You have to go to the office. You have to go to bars and restaurants. You have to go to concerts. You have to go on vacation. You have to post about it.</p>
<p>You have to talk to strangers.</p>
<p>But...</p>
<p>You can't talk about all the friends and family you've lost. You can't talk about how tired you are. You can't talk about politics. You can't talk about climate change. You can't talk about the wildfires or that town that burned down. You can't talk about living through the hottest days in human history. You can't talk about masks or air purifiers. You can't talk about student loans. You can't talk about the wars we're fighting or getting ready to fight.</p>
<p>You can't talk about anything that matters.</p>
<p>You can only talk about the latest shitty superhero movie. You can talk about Barbie. You can talk about celebrity gossip. You can talk about the vacation you pretended to enjoy. You can talk about yoga.</p>
<p>You can talk about your morning routine.</p>
<p>You can talk about sports.</p>
<p>The conspiracy theories are getting even crazier. Now people don't believe in viruses at all. They don't believe in polio. They don't believe in the flu. They don't even believe droughts are real anymore. They believe the government is hiding endless supplies of clean water deep underground. They believe the government is starting fires with space lasers.</p>
<p>They're turning into rhinos.</p>
<p>There's a reason why everyone's so tired and miserable. It's not because of climate change. It's not because of the pandemic. It's because of this tedious, soul-sucking normal we're forcing each other to endure.</p>
<p>It doesn't have to be like this.</p>
<p>We don't have to turn into rhinos. We could ditch this normal for something else. All we have to do is stop pretending.</p>
<p>It would be easy.</p>
<p>We have the knowledge and tools to survive. We could build tiny houses for everyone. We could build root cellars. We could build earth tubes. We could leave these shitty jobs and ugly McMansions in the desert. We could localize our supply chains. We could let go of beef. We could build rain catchment systems. We could get around on carts and bicycles.</p>
<p>We could ration energy and electricity.</p>
<p>We could be happy.</p>
<p>We're not miserable because of viruses or heat indexes. We're miserable because this system forces us to participate in our own destruction. We're miserable because we know deep down that we're in trouble, that we have to adapt, but we're still expected to sling lattes for assholes, all the way up until the moment a wildfire or a flood engulfs our neighborhood.</p>
<p>We're miserable because we're forced to watch the world burn on our phones, and then we're accused of doomscrolling.</p>
<p>Isn't that something?</p>

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<h1>Family Tree Wisdom</h1>
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<p><a href="https://chriscoyier.net/2023/08/25/what-if-you-did-x-every-single-day/">Chris</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>My grandpa used to say that if you climb a rope every day, you’ll never not be able to do it.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Ha, I love it!</p>
<p>It got me thinking: I’d love to hear more folks’ “wisdom from the family tree”. Stuff like Chris shared, “My grandpa used to say…”</p>
<p>I immediately had a few family members come to mind who repeatedly quoted the same phrase. In fact, I did a quick internet search and turns out some of these are derivative quotes from other people that pre-date any of my in-laws. That said, in my mind these quotes are forever tied to these people.</p>
<ul>
<li>“Nobody ever got to the end of their life and said, ‘I wish I hadn’t been so kind‘.” — Grandma</li>
<li>“I’m not young enough to know everything.” — Uncle</li>
<li>“What you’re saying might be true, but I don’t believe a word of it.” — Dad</li>
<li>“If everybody threw their problems in a pile, once we saw everyone else’s we’d grab ours back fast.” — Grandpa</li>
</ul>
<p>Do you have some quotes from family members you always think about? Blog ‘em and <a href="https://www.jim-nielsen.com/#contact">send me a link</a>.</p>

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title: Family Tree Wisdom
url: https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/2023/family-tree-wisdom/
hash_url: d40295a6495f934934436470ad425cac

<p><a href="https://chriscoyier.net/2023/08/25/what-if-you-did-x-every-single-day/">Chris</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>My grandpa used to say that if you climb a rope every day, you’ll never not be able to do it.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Ha, I love it!</p>
<p>It got me thinking: I’d love to hear more folks’ “wisdom from the family tree”. Stuff like Chris shared, “My grandpa used to say…”</p>
<p>I immediately had a few family members come to mind who repeatedly quoted the same phrase. In fact, I did a quick internet search and turns out some of these are derivative quotes from other people that pre-date any of my in-laws. That said, in my mind these quotes are forever tied to these people.</p>
<ul>
<li>“Nobody ever got to the end of their life and said, ‘I wish I hadn’t been so kind‘.” — Grandma</li>
<li>“I’m not young enough to know everything.” — Uncle</li>
<li>“What you’re saying might be true, but I don’t believe a word of it.” — Dad</li>
<li>“If everybody threw their problems in a pile, once we saw everyone else’s we’d grab ours back fast.” — Grandpa</li>
</ul>
<p>Do you have some quotes from family members you always think about? Blog ‘em and <a href="https://www.jim-nielsen.com/#contact">send me a link</a>.</p>

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<li><a href="/david/cache/2022/339a862f8939f7ba8ae1524fa14f94c2/" title="Accès à l’article dans le cache local : The Price Developers Pay for Loving Their Tools Too Much">The Price Developers Pay for Loving Their Tools Too Much</a> (<a href="https://remotesynthesis.com/blog/the-price-of-developer-tools/" title="Accès à l’article original distant : The Price Developers Pay for Loving Their Tools Too Much">original</a>)</li>
<li><a href="/david/cache/2022/8be5d8a651e8f8e211cfe10fd49bb3f0/" title="Accès à l’article dans le cache local : Pluralistic: Autoenshittification (24 July 2023)">Pluralistic: Autoenshittification (24 July 2023)</a> (<a href="https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/" title="Accès à l’article original distant : Pluralistic: Autoenshittification (24 July 2023)">original</a>)</li>
<li><a href="/david/cache/2022/3ca10b945c7517c2f234e3b9534bfb6d/" title="Accès à l’article dans le cache local : Software Maxims">Software Maxims</a> (<a href="https://www.softwaremaxims.com/blog/not-a-supplier" title="Accès à l’article original distant : Software Maxims">original</a>)</li>
<li><a href="/david/cache/2022/25d41d569f637f8342c495139ccce8a8/" title="Accès à l’article dans le cache local : Stupeur et tremblements : comment faire fuir les développeuses expérimentées.">Stupeur et tremblements : comment faire fuir les développeuses expérimentées.</a> (<a href="https://www.duchess-france.fr/coup%20de%20gueule/sexisme/2023/03/06/stupeur-et-trembements.html" title="Accès à l’article original distant : Stupeur et tremblements : comment faire fuir les développeuses expérimentées.">original</a>)</li>
@@ -221,6 +223,8 @@
<li><a href="/david/cache/2022/392138accbdaee722a669834da5f1a8d/" title="Accès à l’article dans le cache local : Farandole de projets">Farandole de projets</a> (<a href="https://marienfressinaud.fr/farandole-de-projets.html" title="Accès à l’article original distant : Farandole de projets">original</a>)</li>
<li><a href="/david/cache/2022/81eb35bbd276cb28230820176152af87/" title="Accès à l’article dans le cache local : It’s Official: Cars Are the Worst Product Category We Have Ever Reviewed for Privacy">It’s Official: Cars Are the Worst Product Category We Have Ever Reviewed for Privacy</a> (<a href="https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/articles/its-official-cars-are-the-worst-product-category-we-have-ever-reviewed-for-privacy/" title="Accès à l’article original distant : It’s Official: Cars Are the Worst Product Category We Have Ever Reviewed for Privacy">original</a>)</li>
<li><a href="/david/cache/2022/32448878bfcad6dd5d1bcb2b626f1a9d/" title="Accès à l’article dans le cache local : La conférence Web surtout Humaine">La conférence Web surtout Humaine</a> (<a href="https://sudweb.fr/2023/" title="Accès à l’article original distant : La conférence Web surtout Humaine">original</a>)</li>
<li><a href="/david/cache/2022/fb08217a583922fd319fabb55f34a4f3/" title="Accès à l’article dans le cache local : A community isn’t a garden, it’s a bar.">A community isn’t a garden, it’s a bar.</a> (<a href="https://powazek.com/posts/3571" title="Accès à l’article original distant : A community isn’t a garden, it’s a bar.">original</a>)</li>

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