Google is a Thief

As the automotive industry weighs its collaboration with Apple and Google it is worth considering the motivations of Apple and Google. Is either Apple or Google truly focused on enhancing driving safety and improving transportation? Not really. Therein lies the rub.

Apple wants to sell phones and other hardware. Google wants to sell advertising while trafficking in personal information.

It is hard to say which of these companies is more disingenuous regarding its objectives. Apple has been trying to distance itself from Google lately by claiming a higher calling of preserving users’ privacy. But a NYTimes article appearing earlier this week notes Apple’s use of Google Search – clearly suggesting a less than pure devotion to this claim.

Google, at least, makes no claims to preserving privacy, but plays on the value of its free services as a smokescreen to obscure the extent to which it compromises everyone’s personal information. In fact, Google has made the compromise of personal information so pervasive that we have almost come to view hacking as routine, expected and somehow benign – the cost of doing business.

A kind of Stockholm syndrome has set in globally – with the possible exception of the European Union – whereby we all roboticly accept the “deal” with Google to surrender ownership of our search and location and email information in exchange for maps and search and targeted advertising.

Car makers generally – and Volkswagen AG, in particular - have asserted their intention to preserve customer privacy. But nearly every car maker is already sleeping with Google, so such claims ring hollow – especially from Audi (and CEO Rupert Stadler – “Audi Pledges to Secure Driver Data” – FierceWireless - https://tinyurl.com/p6hj2ur) which took the extraordinary step of implementing Google Earth in connected Audi vehicles. How does a car company render Google Earth in a car without violating privacy?

Car makers are quick to claim that they anonymize customer data. But a recent report delivered at the International Transport Forum questions whether it is even possible to anonymize data. International Transport Union report: https://tinyurl.com/oy5jo6f

The only solution is to give consumers control and access to their data in the car. Google is a data thief finally tuned to extract any and all information it can. So long as car makers choose to sleep with Google they cannot claim to be protecting customer privacy. And Apple is no better. In fact, Apple may be worse for claiming to protect privacy when it is sleeping in the same bed with Google.

Car makers have a commercial interest in violating their customers’ privacy. If a car has a potentially fatal flaw, the car maker will want to be able to locate that car to notify its owner. With the record-breaking rate of vehicle recalls, some car makers have gone so far as to remove parts from vehicles in junkyards. Yes, it has come to that.

In this context, car makers and their customers have good reasons to share information and remain connected. But Google and Apple should not be allowed to intrude on that connection for crass commercial purposes that have nothing to do with making driving safer, preventing crashes or saving lives.

Google and Apple are thieves unconcerned with any collateral damage their commercial concerns may cause. To make matters worse, they refuse to accept the liability responsibilities taken on by their competitors in the automotive market. The auto industry will do well to keep Google and Apple confined, controlled and segregated from core vehicle safety systems and customer-centric functions.  Let's turn the tables on the hostage takers.