Car Makers Want To Protect Your Information

Car makers are limiting the data they are sharing with Apple and Google though car entertainment systems (what the car makers call infotainment).

This is not because they value your privacy, but rather because they want to be able to sell your data themselves and if they no longer own it because they gave it to Apple or Google, they won’t be able to do that.

The car makers are hoping to make a billion dollars from selling your data some day in the future, so they want to keep their options open.

Some car makers have said that they will not give information like steering, braking and throttle, even though they capture that data.  If Google, for example, were to create an app that uses that data, the car makers don’t make any money.  Google, from their viewpoint, wants as much data as possible.

GM has told its investors that GM expects to make $350 million over the next three years from the data connections they are building into cars.

AlixPartners, a consultancy, expects the global revenues from digitally connect cars to be $40 billion a year by 2018.

The downside of this from the user’s standpoint is that each car will be different and there will not be any way to exchange information from car to car (say you are a two car family with cars from different manufacturers).

GM, for example, says that they are not feeding any information to Apple or Google.   VW says that Google and Apple want more information than they are willing to give.

Everyone wants to control your eyes, mind and heart – and, of course, your wallet – whether that is an analog or digital wallet.  At this point, there is no clear winner and likely won’t be for years.  What we do know is that everyone is going to be selling a piece of you.

Information for this post came from Reuters.

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