Toyota, Progressive Insurance, and a data analytics firm are now being accused of collecting detailed personal driving information without proper consent

  • dual_sport_dork 🐧🗡️@lemmy.world
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    6 hours ago

    Douglas Adams, apparently ever prescient, was on top of this long before the rest of us. This is from The Long Dark Tea-Time Of The Soul, which I will remind you was published in 1988 and in the foreword says it was typeset on a Macintosh II:

    There was a pay phone in one of the dark corners where waiters slouched moodily at one another. Dirk threaded his way through them, wondering whom it was they reminded him of, and eventually deciding it was the small crowd of naked men standing around behind the Holy Family in Michelangelo’s picture of the same name, for no more apparent reason than Michelangelo rather liked them.

    He telephoned an acquaintance of his called Nobby Paxton, or so he claimed, who worked the darker side of the domestic appliance supply business. Dirk came straight to the point.

    “Dobby, I deed a fridge.” (At this point in the book, Dirk has recently been punched in the face and is talking funny due to a broken nose.)

    “Dirk, I been saving one against the day you’d ask me.”

    Dirk found this highly unlikely.

    “Only I wand a good fridge, you thee, Dobby.”

    “This is the best, Dirk. Japanese. Microprocessor-controlled.”

    “What would a microprothehtor be doing in a fridge, Dobby?”

    “Keeping itself cool, Dirk. I’ll get the lads to bring it round right away. I need to get it off the premises pretty sharpish for reasons I won’t trouble you with.”

    “I apprethiade thid, Dobby,” said Dirk. “Problem id, I’m not home at preddent.”

    “Gaining access to houses in the absence of their owners is only one of the panoply of skills with which my lads are blessed. Let me know if you find anything missing afterwards, by the way.”