Ford knows where you drive...

Ford knows where you drive...  This story is all over the place today, usually accompanied by breathless commentary about the evils of corporate data gatherers.  I've got bad news for everybody: there's nothing either unique or surprising about Ford's gathering of GPS information.  This sort of data aggregation is a natural, even required side-effect of the other services companies like Ford are rolling out – usually to our delight, so much so that we're willing to pay big bucks to get them.

Take, for example, today's ubiquitous mobile phones.  They only work because the phone company knows exactly where you are.  Well, more precisely, they know exactly where your phone is.  Of course they keep records of where you've been – and those records allow services that we really, really want.  For example: the only reason that 911 works on your mobile phone is because that data exists.

I could go on in this vein for a long time, for there are many examples – including the services offered (and that people pay for) by Ford, GM, and other car companies that are enabled by the combination of mobile phone and GPS technologies – and the records of your car's location that result.

I don't mean to say that more privacy protections couldn't (or shouldn't) be put into place.  Personally, I favor transparency and liability as the best tools for a solution.  I think companies that use your location (or other private data) should be allowed to do so if they tell you they're doing it.  Then you can freely choose whether to use their service or not, based on your privacy concerns – and companies will find a motivation for increasing their privacy protections, based on consumer reaction.  On the liability side, I think companies should be liable for any breach of their privacy commitments, including consequential damages.  This is a big grey area right now, both in law and in precedent, and outcomes are (a) unpredictable, and (b) very expensive.  We won't see companies working hard to protect our privacy until it's in their financial interest to do so, and under today's liability regime, the incentives are mostly in the company's favor...