10 mo. ago • 95%

VW wouldn't help locate car with abducted child because GPS subscription expired

arstechnica.com VW wouldn’t help locate car with abducted child because GPS subscription expired

VW says its Car-Net service shouldn't have demanded $150 payment from detective.

There is a discussion on Hacker News, but feel free to comment here as well.

19 comments

mmmm taste that free market. im sure that consumer will use their money to buy elsewhere, thereby telling volkswagon exactly how that behavior will be tolerated!

69
- yep. the invisible hand of the market will surely correct for this and everything will become just and good... as long as pesky regulations don't stick their noses in it....
  
  34
  
  And unions! We all know how evil and horrible those unions are. I'm sure it's their fault too!
  
  14
- No doubt exactly how Volkswagen went under when people stopped buying them because they maliciously tampered with emissions computers, literally poisoning people around their cars to make them look more efficient. Justice will no doubt be swift for these large organisations.
  
  15
I see. A cop can call up VW and get your car's location whenever they want, even if you've cancelled any sort of tracking service.

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- Permanently Deleted
  
  1
- If the owner of the car is consenting to have it tracked, I don't see the problem here. Why do you make it sound like the police overreached?
  
  0
  
  I seriously doubt vw cares if the owner consents.
  
  In this case, they absolutely did, and it didn’t matter . I would bet that the reverse is true and that if they absolutely don’t consent, it still doesn’t matter.
  
  13
  
  My comment isn't specific to this incident.
  
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VW gave all owners access to free car-net for 5 years because of this screw up.

18
There used to a joke that those OnStar systems would call the cops on you for DUI and every day that is closer to being reality. I don't condone drinking and driving but the government invasion of privacy is pretty scary too.

14
Didn't they help the nazis too? It never stops with those guys

9
- Help the Nazis? Volkswagen was literally started by the Nazis.
  
  17
  
  True but also entirely irrelevant, this isn’t some unusually nefarious plot or racist agenda at work.
  
  Just plain old capitalism, blind greed over everything. This could have been literally any manufacturer and it would have been neither a surprise nor made a difference
  
  6
what the fuck

6
This is the best summary I could come up with:

According to a Chicago Sun-Times article, "the Car-Net trial period had ended, and a representative wanted $150 to restart the service and locate the SUV."

The detective pleaded, explaining the "extremely exigent circumstance," but the representative didn't budge, saying it was company policy, sheriff's office Deputy Chief Christopher Covelli said Friday.

"Volkswagen has a procedure in place with a third-party provider for Car-Net Support Services involving emergency requests from law enforcement.

A man wearing a mask got out of the BMW "and struggled to get into the victim's Volkswagen, as she tried to keep her 2-year-old son safe," the sheriff's office said.

The perpetrators fled, and the person who called 911 "rescued the child from the parking lot" before the boy could wander onto the busy roadway.

When contacted by Ars today, Covelli said the sheriff's office is still searching for the BMW and believes the car is still in the area.

The original article contains 750 words, the summary contains 152 words. Saved 80%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

3
This is why these technologies should be heavily regulated and automakers should be forced to open source all of their hardware & software implementations, use standard communications platforms that are serviceable and customizable by the consumer.

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This story is from 10 months ago

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