Here’s the original article that every other news article you see is using: https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/blog/privacy-nightmare-on-wheels-every-car-brand-reviewed-by-mozilla-including-ford-volkswagen-and-toyota-flunks-privacy-test/

Laughing smugly in 23 year old car…

Okay, everyone click “Accept” on that privacy policy and we can put this thing in Drive!

Pry my foxbody from my cold dead hands!

I wish I’d known about or considered this a few years ago. I would have kept my now 20 year old car instead of trading it in for a new model.

This world we live in sucks…

I just bought a 2023 Chevy Bolt. The federal tax incentive, lifetime maintenance costs, state sales tax exemption incentive, a credit toward installing a home charger, and charging costs (WA resident) made it a solid long term investment.

That said, they really tried to shove OnStar, SiriusXM, and their shitty app down my throat. I use Android Auto for everything at this point and am now wondering how much of my data is being shipped off to Chevy…

laughs in early 2000’s

It’ll definitely vary widely. Plus side of Kia being a stupid penny-pincher is that in my lower trim model it has no cellular radio that I can tell. But of course I’m planning to get rid of it so I’ve been eyeing a Toyota (4Runner), older 3G equipped models are obsolete in terms of the data tracking here, newer ones you can fiddle with the “Data Connection Module” (DCM) by fuse, antenna (although that’s not completely effective), and generally it’s a clean disconnect by fuse except it’ll kill the microphone. In the rent’s Sonata I believe the BlueLink bits are tied to the headunit.

Looks like something to keep an eye on in the future, hopefully more people catch on and are willing to tinker. Read about some wanting to pull apart the dash and wrap the DCM in foil but haven’t heard of how that goes. There’s also the option of calling(?) Toyota to turn it off, but whether it can be reenabled remotely is another question.