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Rental Car Companies Watching By Satellite, Again 491

Posted by timothy from the panoptimcon dept.
tlcruiser writes: "The Arizona Daily Star reports that Budget Rent-A-Car companies in Arizona have used satellite tracking systems to track customers' use without notifying customers. They have used the tracking system to issue fines to their customers. Several customers are suing Budget for the invasion of privacy." When ACME Rent-a-Car did this in Connecticut, it was found improper by that state's Department of Consumer Protection. This time, the monitoring is not only of speed, but also of whether renters are staying within contractually allowed driving territories.
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Rental Car Companies Watching By Satellite, Again More

Rental Car Companies Watching By Satellite, Again

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  • This is yet another travesty for our rights. If the government continues to help large corporations like this to spy on us, well .. George Orwell might just have been correct.

    With this and all the other tracking, we are no more than agents on a giant grid of numbers, slowly being calculated away to oblivion.
    • There is one solution to that.....isn't there a method to kill the GPS antenna? Something I read somewhere stated that if you cover an antenna with aluminum foil it will kill the GPS antenna?

    • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday July 06, 2002 @08:42PM (#3834902)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • And having used Budget before, I can say that there is a cause in their contract that says "We reserve the right to use technological measures to enforce limitations imposed within this contract".

        This is WAY too vague. What if those measures include attaching alligator clips to your nutsack that become electrified if you go over 55mph?

        What if you're a senator and you're taking the rental to the whore-house to avoid detection?

        Point being, they should spell out what those "measures" are.

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • What if those measures include attaching alligator clips to your nutsack that become electrified if you go over 55mph?

          So...would that stop you from speeding?:)

      • Re:Despicable practice (Score:5, Insightful)

        by treat ( 84622 ) on Saturday July 06, 2002 @09:43PM (#3835138)
        That being said, if you sign a contract, and agree to limit your use to specific terms and conditions, expect it to be enforced.

        The simple fact is that in our dealings with coroprations, we are frequently required to agree to large, complex, one-sided agreements. People sign (or otherwise agree to) these contracts because they really have no choice. Negotiating on the details of the agreement is simply not an option, and taking your business elsewhere may not be a realistic solution. Rarely are such contracts read - how many contracts have you agreed to without reading? I would imagine the number is in the thousands.

        • Re:Despicable practice (Score:2, Interesting)

          by deanj ( 519759 )
          They could have ridden the bus, train, taken a taxi, or better yet, just driven with another car rental company.

          Not all car rental places are this way.

          And it's not the company's fault that someone didn't read the contract. It's the customer. If you don't like what it says, walk away and go to another rental counter.

          I have.

          The look on the rental employee's face is priceless when you walk too.
        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
          • But are you fully comprehending all of the legal ramifications of the contract?

            Do you know all the relavent state and local laws of the region you just flew into?

            I'm sure the large team of lawyers who drafted the contract did, maybe we all need to have lawyers on retainer to run over the contract at the rental counter for us before we sign.
      • Actually you need to reassess your ideology, because you do not come across as a proponent of civil liberty. You seem to believe that hiding things in contracts where a lay person who does not scrutinize it with the skill of an experienced lawyer is okay. You sound like someone who is pro-big corporations squeezing the little guy.

        Businesses are held to a higher standard because it is known they can afford a legal team to draft and analyze a contract that hides details of abusive acts they intend to perform in order to squeeze more money out of a customer. If budget did not print in a large type face at the top of the rental agreement "We have a tracking device on the car that monitors where you are at all times and reports back to us and if you travel outside allowed boundaries you will be fined $1 for every mile you traveled inside or outside of those boundaries" then Budget is going to be in an uncomfortable spot.

        They charge $1 for every mile traveled if you take one step out of bounds? Now why would they do that? Maybe because they knew if they exercise that penalty option they will permanently lose a customer so it is important to get as much money as possible from them at that time. How many people will spend $7,500 on budget rental cars during their lifetime?

        That not withstanding, if they keep a record of where you've been, they have violated your *RIGHT* to privacy. If they have you sign away that *RIGHT* without some *CONSIDERATION* then that portion of the contract is probably going to be voided (I don't think "You get to drive our car which you are paying us for anyway" is going to hold up as consideration for signing away your right to privacy). Can an employer who is unhappy with people stealing stuff out of the executive washroom have you sign away your right to privacy in that bathroom? Here's a hint: NO THEY CAN'T. What if you're going through a messy divorce and your spouse's lawyer files a discovery subpoena for the logs of where you went with your rental car looking to create evidence suggestive of having an affair? Seems like quite an invasion of privacy now, doesn't it?

        In a Civil suit (which is what most of those suits are), Budget is in an uncomfortable position already. They are going to have to convince a jury that hiding the details of what they were doing doesn't represent an egregious abuse of their ability to hire a legal team to write such contracts.

        There are some things you just can't sign away. Adjust your political leanings accordingly.
        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
          • The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized

            Read that, and then lets proceed from there.

            *sigh* Only applies to and limits the Government.

            First off, in any decent court of law, this evidence would be inadmissable for a few good reasons.

            In a criminal action you might be correct. Unless it provides some clear exculpatory circumstantial evidence, it would be thrown out. In a civil action, you are almost certainly wrong. The bar is much lower for civil cases. None of this "reasonable doubt" stuff. And unless your divorce is really messy it's just a civil action.

            The larger issue is whether, as a renter of property, rights of privacy come attached to rental agrement. I contend clearly not. The rights of property holders supercedes the transfer of privacy rights to renters.

            So the owner of an apartment/duplex/house can enter the premises at any time to make sure it is being well kept, right? I mean if I want to make sure my tenants aren't cooking meth at 3 in the morning, I can walk in and check, right? The law varies from state to state, but most of them require at least 24 hours notice, and the inspection must take place during reasonable hours (meaning not 3am). Therefore I would say the law disagrees with you.

            Again, you *really* do not sound libertarian. You clearly give preference to the priveleged minority to exercise invasive actions against the rest.

            I would point you to the fact that you cannot require someone as a condition of using your bathroom to sign an agreement allowing you to monitor their use of the bathroom with video equipment. It's your bathroom, right? You should be able to set the rules, right? Wrong. The closest you come to that is pay them (consideration) in exchange for your monitoring.

            There are a whole series of things the courts have decided should offer a reasonable expectation of privacy. The bathroom is one. Another is a phone call to an outside party on your employer's telephone. Look back to the fervor created when cities wanted to install "photo radar" so they could just mail you tickets instead of taking up valuable police officer time - do really think there isn't an argument that a car should offer some degree of reasonable expectation of privacy?

      • Re:Fun Stuff With Despicable practices (Score:5, Funny)

        by danamania ( 540950 ) on Saturday July 06, 2002 @10:12PM (#3835252)
        That being said, if you sign a contract, and agree to limit your use to specific terms and conditions, expect it to be enforced.

        I would still be *SO* tempted to rent a car, pull the satellite tracking 'bits' out, UPS them around the country for a few days, and pop them back in.

        Then deal with the 'fine' for doing air transport plane speeds across 8 states :D. "Yes Ma'am, you appear to have broken a few laws by exceeding the speed limit by five hundred and... oh. Hang on a sec..."

        a grrl & her server [danamania.com]

      • Re:Despicable practice (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Ian Bicking ( 980 ) <ianb@nOspaM.colorstudy.com> on Saturday July 06, 2002 @11:19PM (#3835482) Homepage
        The ONLY question here is that they used GPS to enforce their contract. And having used Budget before, I can say that there is a cause in their contract that says "We reserve the right to use technological measures to enforce limitations imposed within this contract".
        The problem (in my mind) isn't really that they are tracking you to enforce their rules. It is that they are tracking you, and collecting significant information on you without your knowledge. It is the person who never violates the contract that has been violated -- moreso because they will never realize it.

        For instance, does Budget immediately and permanently destroy all information about your activities if they are not outside of your contract? Do they have measures to protect the security of your information from crackers? What information exactly do they collect? All information could be attained by law enforcement agencies, almost arbitrarily since PATRIOT. Destroying information won't help if the police get there first and make the people quietly keep the information.

        They need to have a clear notification that all your movement in the car is tracked. And it shouldn't just be in the contract -- it's not about the contract at all. They need a big sticker on the dashboard, saying "We track all your movement". That they can use that information to fine you is part of the contract.

        Of course, clearly presented with this information, Budget's revenue would probably drop precipitously as people would be seriously spooked by having their movements tracked. But that's as it should be. It's not a free market if parties are uninformed about the products being exchanged.

  • We all know that to spy on someone while they are in their own vehical is illegal, do to the right to privacy. When you are renting a vehical, you are held responsible if it is damaged, and therefor, for a time it is yours. Budget definatly needs to cut it out, or inform people in big print they will be spied on.

  • Faraday Cage that GPS. (Score:3, Informative)

    by elrond1999 ( 88166 ) on Saturday July 06, 2002 @08:37PM (#3834882)
    Just put a Faraday Cage [davidson.edu] around that GPS antenna and they won't know a thing!

  • Where are the hackers when you need them? (Score:4, Funny)

    by flacco ( 324089 ) on Saturday July 06, 2002 @08:38PM (#3834885)
    Does this thing just read and store GPS readings that are dumped after the vehicle is returned?

    Wouldn't it be great if you could get in there and spoof a trip, say, from the center of the earth to the moon? I imagine that would take you out of "contractually allowed driving territories", but I'd like to see them enforce it in court.

  • Either that, or the two extra wires mean that they've installed heated rear-view mirrors.

    --Blair

  • Blocking the GPS antenna? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Ryu2 ( 89645 ) on Saturday July 06, 2002 @08:39PM (#3834893) Homepage Journal
    Would that be considered prima facie evidence of violation by rental car companies?

    GPS is actually very prone to interference, especially when driving in big cities (tall buildings, etc), and so not being able to receive signals is something not necessarily abnormal... thus, if one prevents the GPS signal from being received, would they be suspicious?

  • Oh, what terrible people they are... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by FFFish ( 7567 ) on Saturday July 06, 2002 @08:42PM (#3834904) Homepage
    ...for protecting the property that they own.

    I suppose one also must sue the cable companies, should they detect that you've split your cable feed so that you can share it with twenty of your neighbours; the scooter rental company at the beach, for putting a speed limiter on the bike; and the local theatre, for not letting you bring in your video camera.

    Yes, how terrible it is that the owner of a car might wish to ensure that it's not being used illegally.

    How's this for an idea: you wanna break the speed limits or travel tens of thousands of kilometers, you buy your own car, and quit using someone else's car.
    • How's this for an idea: you wanna break the speed limits or travel tens of thousands of kilometers, you buy your own car, and quit using someone else's car.

      Sounds perfectly reasonable to me. Here's an idea for you: How about the rental car company fucking tells me they're going to do this so I can be an informed consumer and select one of their competitors?

      • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday July 06, 2002 @09:06PM (#3835004)
        Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • So you just assumed that they'd put terms in their contract they couldn't enforce?

          No, but the terms of the contract should be specific enough so that I'm able to ensure that their "technical measures" do not have side-effects that allow my right to privacy to be abused.

          If they're going to use GPS - tell me that. If the GPS sends signals so that they know whether my rental car is parked in front of a church or in front of the Atheist Bedwetting Bondage-Freak Communist Party headquarters, I want to know that too.

          If they just had an infallible, big red light that starts blinking when I violate the terms of the contract, without giving them any further information regarding my whereabouts, that's different.

          IOW - my problem is not with their terms per se, but that they intentionally make the contract clause so vague as to be meaningless.

        • Lets be practical (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward
          You fly 8 hours, get to your destination at 11 PM and you get to the budget counter.

          They push the paperwork across the counter... you've been renting for 20 years, and its 2 full pages of legalese, so you (very reasonably) assume there's nothing new.

          Nope.

          In there, they say they're going to track you and charge you every time you drive outside of a defined zone.

          Now the rep doesn't explain any of this...after all, their job is to sell you non-insurance (CDW). So you sign it and drive over the state line. What the hell do you know about the rule not to cross the state line? After all, the rep is too busy selling you CDW to tell you about that part.

          So you sign. You come back later, and there's a $7500 surcharge.

          And asswipes like you say "well, you should have read the fine print".

          Son, why do I need to have a lawyer tagging along with me to rent a car? It isn't REASONABLE, and you're essentially forced to sign at that point.

          Or you could pass up the car, but all the other cars companies are closed or sold out.

          "BUt you should have asked before hand" you bleat like a corporate sheep.

          How the fuck can you get through life if every transaction requires a lawyer. Going to go into Wal-Mart to get some mouthwash? Uh-uh. You don't know what "rights" you're giving up.

          If the capitalistic life is supposed to work that way, then I'm voting socialist. Every corporate entity should have their hands up my ass looking for a few bucks. If I rent a car, and they have special rules, then they should put up a sign that says "Hey, we're tracking you, and we're going to charge your sorry ass if you go one foot outside the state".

          But no, corporations typically don't work that way.

          The intent of this rule *ISN'T* to protect property, its to start dinging people a grand here and there because they know the legal system is stacked in their favor.

          And we've got corporate assholes like you defending it like it came from jesus lips that customers have to bend over and take it to support some weird economic notion you have.

          You and Marie Antoinette have a lot in common.
    • >>>
      I suppose one also must sue the cable companies, should they detect that you've split your cable feed so that you can share it with twenty of your neighbours; the scooter rental company at the beach, for putting a speed limiter on the bike; and the local theatre, for not letting you bring in your video camera.
      >>>

      That quest for protection ends where my privacy begins. And that VERY MUCH includes knowledge of everywhere I go, unless I agree to it explicitly. How would you feel if cable companies had the right to barge into your house to check if I've split the wire there. Or if theaters, in the search for protection, strip searched everyone who entered, to ensure there was no camera?

      Yeah, that's how you should feel about this. Limiting the speed on the engine and using other methods (like flipping a switch if away from a radar transmitter, or something) would do the trick just fine.

      You're done.
    • Parent suggests that we should perhaps buy a new car every time we take a plane flight to go on vacation.

      This is a mark of a troll, but I have to admit, it was a good one.
    • They're not "protecting" their property; they've just found a covert, possibly-illegal way to squeeze more money out of their customers.

      Regardless of the letter of the law on the speed limit, 99% of drivers consider it to be a guide and feel comfortable exceeding it by 5 mph. Sometimes the flow of traffic dictates that you exceed it it you don't want to get rear-ended. Yet when you return the truck, the company bills your credit card a surcharge they never told you about for exceeding the speed limit by 5 mph.

      The same goes for the region you're allowed to drive in. The company could say you're not allowed to take their truck outside a 100-mile radius and surreptitiously install a GPS receiver to ensure you don't go outside that radius, but they don't give you any indication of exactly where the boundary is. And what if the GPS receiver isn't calibrated properly? If the time on the device isn't correct, the location it reports won't be correct. The average person working at a rental car company doesn't know anything about GPS, so it's likely to be off, but the average consumer won't think to question it. "You were tracking me with GPS? Oh my God, the military uses that. It must be right."

      Your comparison to suing "the local theatre, for not letting you bring in your video camera" is way off. This is more like if you rent a video camera to tape your daughter's wedding and upon its return the rental company bills a surcharge to your credit card because you shot 4 hours of video (on your own tape, mind you) instead of the 3 hours specified by the fine print in their contract. Or if they installed a GPS receiver in the camera so they can bill you if you take the camera more than 10 miles from their store.

      Sometimes I wonder if trolls like you really exist in nature or if you're artificially created by corporations.

      • If the time on the device isn't correct, the location it reports won't be correct. The average person working at a rental car company doesn't know anything about GPS, so it's likely to be off, but the average consumer won't think to question it.

        Umm... You know nothing about GPS. The time is received from the satellite.

    • To some extend, I do agree with you. However, I want to chip one thing in.

      The speed limit on the highway where I live is 55 MPH. The average speed is about 70 MPH; you can do 80 MPH and be keeping up with the majority of the people at times. The police rarely do much, because someone going 55 while everyone else does 80 isn't a "good citizen" -- they're a hazard. Yes, 80 MPH may be dangerous, but someone going 55 in such circumstances is equally as dangerous.

      What I'm saying can be summarized as such - without them knowing the prevailing circumstances and conditions, I really don't think they have any right to issue me a fine for speeding. (Note that I'm not debating the legality of this - it's in a contract, and you signed it. I'm merely discussing why no one should ever agree to a contract like this.)

    • Re:Oh, what terrible people they are... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Erasmus Darwin ( 183180 ) on Sunday July 07, 2002 @12:17AM (#3835649)
      "Oh, what terrible people they are... ...for protecting the property that they own."

      Did you even bother reading the article? If you had, you'd see that the bulk of it explains why the rental agency's activites could be seen as more than just protecting their property.

      For example, consider the following quote from the article, "Some customers said they didn't realize the $1-per-mile charge would be applied to their entire trip." In other words, if I were to drive an unlimited mileage in-state rental for 5,000 in-state miles and 2 out-of-state miles, I get hit with a $5,002 penalty.

      It gets even worse, as "In some cases, according to court documents, the customers discussed their travel routes with Budget rental agents, and permitted areas were noted on rental contracts."

      In short, this sounds like the rental agency is using the penalties as a gotcha-style revenue scheme rather than a legitimate means of protecting their own property. The fact that you ignored that entire aspect of the article makes me suspect that you're either delibrately trolling or at least weren't diligent enough to read up on the issue that you're commenting on.

  • Blocking the signal? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by pla ( 258480 ) on Saturday July 06, 2002 @08:43PM (#3834908) Journal
    In my experience as a hiker, it takes very little to prevent a GPS receiver from obtaining a good lock. Now, I suppose these companies *could* literally track the cars by satellite, ala LoJack, but far more likely they just have a GPS receiver in the vehicle together with a transmitter that "calls home" every few minutes to report a position.

    So, for the EE geeks out there, what would it take to block (or render unintelligible) either signal, the GPS in or the position reporting out? Would this take an active device, or would some sort of hack as simple as wrapping the antenna in grounded metal foil work?

    Just a thought. I don't suppose this would actually work, the corporate scum probably have a clause in the contract that "if your car doesn't report home at least once per hour, we automatically charge you the maximum of every fine we can possibly think of."
  • GPS is a one-way technology only... so does the system communicate stats in real-time over some other wireless data net to the company? Or does it store GPS position data in a buffer that's only later reviewed when the car is returned? If so, one just needs to clear the buffer somehow; I'm sure a hacker will figure it out.

    In any case, I suspect that the system gets power from the car's electrical system, in which case, finding the right fuse to pull should be sufficient... ;)

  • Panic over nothing (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ClubPetey ( 324486 ) <clubpetey@noSPaM.yahoo.com> on Saturday July 06, 2002 @08:54PM (#3834952)
    As usual seems many people did not read the article. The lawsuit is NOT about tracking the individuals in their vehicles (though the article does play that aspect up). The lawsuit is about wording in the contract. Specifically that the renters thought it was $1/mile in the "out of bounds" area and Budget charged them $1/mile on their whole trip. Having not actually seen the contract, I cannot comment on whose right, but this leads to the point.

    Companies make rules, if you don't like the rules, then don't buy from them. If you are willing to accept the rules, then you must also be willing to accept the methods used to enforce those rules. Otherwise the rule is pointless.

    Now, many people may get upset becuase they previously took advantage of the fact that the company couldn't enforce the rule accurately. But those people have no right to complain. They got lucky and their luck has run out.

    I also find it odd that people think that they are allow privacy in a rented vehicle. It's their vehicle, they can do what they want. It is not your vehicle. In the same way that if I was to loan my car to a friend, it is still my vehicle, and if I want to monitor what my friend does with the car, I can. And yes, I would expect my friend to pay for any damages he inflicts on the vehicle as well. Again, if you don't like it, don't rent it.

    • Re:Panic over nothing (Score:5, Insightful)

      by treat ( 84622 ) on Saturday July 06, 2002 @09:54PM (#3835173)

      I also find it odd that people think that they are allow privacy in a rented vehicle.

      Do I have no right to complain if I have sex with my girlfriend in a rented car, and the rental company sells the hidden camera footage to porn sites? What about my rented apartment?

  • Remember, the suit doesn't allege that monitoring is improper. After all, people have the right to give up privacy just as they have the right to privacy. Without the ability to give up some of our rights, we couldn't make binding contracts (ie without the threat of repossession -- burgalary in a different context -- who would offer credit to high-risk borrowers?) The lawsuit alleges consumers weren't properly notified. If the language of the contract is changed, the threat of lawsuits ends (well, the current suit continues, but future ones are avoided).

    So what will happen? Businesses have the power to put these things in the contract and make the penalties for driving too fast or out of area clear to the customer. Most customers will be willing to forego their positional privacy in return for the car. Those who intend to speed or drive out of area will use non-monitoring rental agencies. These in turn will find themselves stuck with the worst customers, the ones who put their vehicles at risk. Most will probably switch to monitoring, though some may simply charge high rental rates and cater to this customer base.

    The outcome: Absent new laws to restrict monitoring, most customers will be monitored and fined when they screw up. Knowing this, fewer customers will speed or drive out of area, reducing rental rates (rental agencies would like to simply pocket the profits from safer driving, but since so much competition exists in the industry prices in most mid-sized or larger areas will probably fall). The risky drivers will pay extra for the privilege to speed and drive where they want without monitoring. Everyone wins -- the car companies have lower costs, the consumers pay more rational prices that reflect the value they place on speeding/privacy/unrestricted destination, and the highways get a very tiny bit safer due to reduced speeding.

    This isn't Big Brother -- it's more like being a Nielsen family. Give up privacy for savings? Why deny me that right? This isn't a utopian future here, but it isn't dystopia either. We should really retain a sense of perspective here.

  • and so what? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    You think maybe, just maybe, they have a right to keep track of their own property, and define the terms by which they'll let you use it? You don't like it, don't use their service. It's not like source code, that car cost them money to buy, it costs them money to keep running, and yes, it'll cost them money to replace.

    Personally, I don't want them keeping this data, but while you're renting the car, they should be allowed to keep it, and if you speed, or go outside the area in the contract, you pay the price for your violation. Then again, I wouldn't mind if half the cars in the world were taken off the road anyway. Too many people are too stupid to drive.

  • Hmm. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by VValdo ( 10446 ) on Saturday July 06, 2002 @09:03PM (#3834987)
    I'm no expert, but it seems that one of two things will happen:

    1. As companies like ACME and budget start to use GPS to track their car's location/speed, there will be a small but inconsequential protest from consumers. Following the initial flurry of objections, other companies will see this as a potential source of revenue and will do it as well. Soon the practice of tracking customer whereabouts will become standard and given no alternative in the market, customers will just have to accept that whenever they rent a car, the company (and others, such as law enforcement or whomever) will know where the car is at all times.

    2. As companies like ACME and budget start to use GPS to track their car's location, there will be an overwhelming outpouring of disgust and fury from the consumer, resulting in organized boycotts against the offending companies. Other companies, seeing that the public is outraged by the privacy invasion, will not track their customers for fear of losing business. The practice of tracking customer's whereabouts will not gain traction, and people will be free to drive cross-country to cheat on their spouses without fear of anyone finding out.

    The question: Which scenario do you think is more likely, given what you know about modern-day America? Keep in mind that as we speak, an American citizen is being held under arrest indefinately by the government without charges being filed. Everyone knows it, but there is no rioting in the street.

    I say if you wanna "get away from it all" in the near future, better walk.

    W

  • They won't get away with this (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Jucius Maximus ( 229128 ) on Saturday July 06, 2002 @09:04PM (#3834991) Journal
    This issue is not quite like file swapping or obscure MSFT actions in adopting and then 'breaking' a standard for their own monopolistic purposes. A judge and jury will clearly understand what is happenning here without advanced terminology that you need to be a programmer to understand. It is a breach into peoples' privacy and it is wrong. The rental company will lose.

    1. "But the rental company *OWNS* the car and wants to make sure it is not misused!"

    Sure they own the car, but the importance of having personal privacy to the level where you are sure you are not being tracked/monitored wherever you drive outweighs the gains afforded by satellite tracking, even if the tracking is mentioned in an obscure location in the agreement. Keep in mind that car rental firms were somehow able to not go belly-up before they were able to track cars by satellite. It's not like the inability to use this technology will hamper their business.

    Chances are that the judge and jury all drive cars and understand the balance of rights and values that hang in the balance here. The right to not having your every move monitored is more important than the rental company's right to protect its property. This was proven the last time such a court case came up -- the driver won the case and got the charges revoked.

    2. "But the owner signed the contract for the car that said tracking was taking place! It's a CONTRACT!!"

    This is not some clickthru license that enables the software owner to keep track of your IP address. Juries don't understand what that means. The auto rental company did not properly inform the driver of what they were doing and that was wrong. Even the your grandmother will understand this.

    What I am trying to say is that this is an issue that even technophobes understand. The driver will win every time unless it was clearly explained that tracking was taking place.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • "The only issue will come to do whether the people knew the contract details, and whether they expected to be caught. "

        The last time [slashdot.org] this happenned, the courts ruled in favour of the driver. The rental firm was not clear on what they were doing, hiding the clause in their contract. The rental firm doesn't care if the driver is speeding. If they did, they would contact the police. They just want to collect more money disguised as 'fines' for breaking the traffic laws.

  • You think this is bad? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by acceleriter ( 231439 ) on Saturday July 06, 2002 @09:11PM (#3835022)
    This got you pissed off? I give it ten years before U.S. insurance companies start providing generous "discounts" on your (state mandated) insurance in return for you allowing similar black-box technology. (Cynics like me would call this a surcharge for not allowing it.)

    Only the very wealthy and self-insured will be able to drive cars without GPS logging and remotely storing your position, velocity, and the time. Rates will be adjusted for forays into "unsafe" neighborhoods, parking outside of bars, etc.

  • Yet another case of consumers who think that their contracts shouldn't apply to them. Honestly, when are people going to get it into their heads that when they sign something, they'll be expected to keep their end of the deal? I'd think a lot more of their 'privacy concerns' if they didn't stand to weasel out of payments of thousands of dollars by bringing this suit.

  • Two rate system (Score:5, Interesting)

    by inburito ( 89603 ) on Saturday July 06, 2002 @09:17PM (#3835038)
    A simple solution for any privacy problems like this is implementing a system of two rates. You don't feel like having a rental car company looking over your shoulder, fine, pay a premium! Don't mind them looking over your shoulder, great, get a discount!

    I suppose that due to our rather cheap nature everyone would opt for the latter choice thus making the system of two rates obsolete at introduction but at least you'd have a choice.

  • Horror Stories From Enterprise Renta Car- (Score:4, Informative)

    by puto ( 533470 ) on Saturday July 06, 2002 @09:34PM (#3835101) Homepage
    My oldest buddy from college is a manager at Enterprise. Now this is the guy who was always the designated driver, rarely got drunk, honest abe, abd never said a harsh word about anyone. Token goody two shoes of my less than desirable crowd.

    There is not week that goes by where he does not call me with some rental horror story. Usually ending up with him and the police looking for a rental that someone refuses to bring back. Or there is a wreck in another state with one of his cars that was rented for local use.

    And the lists goes on. The company owns the car and does need some form of protection. I know if I owned anagency I would want tracking.

    Again the model where you can pay less with the tracking device or pay more without is a good idea.

    The reason the companies are doing this is the lack of responsibility of the renters to respect the car and the contract. And remember very few agencies rent to people under 25.

    Puro

  • On the merits of this story. I believe this is within rental car companies rights. I think the only issue here is a contractual language dispute. Without the contract in front of me, I will conclude it's a valid dispute.

    That said, citizen, protect thy self. Does anyone know of a "jammer" for GPS signals? I know from experience they are weak, and even a good receiver can be blocked by placing it in the wrong spot in a car or under an overpass, etc. It wouldn't take much signal to jam it. Would such a thing be legal? Is there a market for renting them at airport counters near the rental car counters?

  • Calif. Your are not allowed out of state except to Reno/Tahoe area, and if you exceed the speed limit they will fine you. It's on the contract and the attendant told us up front.

  • What if this was an apartment with a camera? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Cerlyn ( 202990 ) on Saturday July 06, 2002 @09:45PM (#3835143)

    Here, rental car companies are using a GPS-based system to verify that you are not violating your agreement with them. Going on a bit of a tangent here, what if the apartment you rented had cameras in it to verify that you were not violating your landlord's rules? My apartment contract (done up by a big, multi-facility renting firm) states that I may not use the apartment I am in for any business purposes, and that they can kick me out for any breach in their contract. Theoretically, that means if I VPNed into my work network, I could lose my place to live.

    Of course, my apartment contract also states that I cannot have anything "flammable" in the apartment, and only the apartment I know of with nothing flammable in it is an empty one, so maybe there is such a thing as going overboard. Still, the question remains as to how far parties will allow each other to supervise that agreements have not been broken, and in all cases, I expect big brother to win.

  • Lemme get this straight... You BREAK YOUR CONTRACT, and then are SURPRISED and PISSED OFF when they CATCH YOU DOING IT?

    Gimme a break. You broke the contract by exiting the area you agreed to stay in. If they catch you doing it, tough luck. You shouldn't have violated your contract.

    Privacy my ass, you people just don't want to get caught breaking the rules.

    Regards, Guspaz
  • You don't have privacy get over it.

    Nobody with money or power wants you to have privacy, you have to fight to keep it.

    Most people feel they have "nothing to hide" and if you want privacy you have "something to hide".

    It is going and will be gone, and there is probaly nothing we can do about it, because most people can't explain why we need it, or even why it is important.
  • One issue that a lot of posters here seem to be missing is that we do things in rental cars we don't want anyone to know about. We visit competitors for interviews in a big hat and a rented car. We visit extramarital lovers in rented cars. We go to gay bars in cities we happen to be driving through. People can find out who we are dating, who our friends are, what our interests are and what our political affiliation is by tracking where we drive. This is especially true on business and pleasure trips, where rental cars (and infidelity) are common. It is reasonable to assume that someone will look at the odometer, kick the tires, and inspect their property when you return a rental. It is not reasonable for them to expect a full log of your journey, let alone to simply extract one from the vehicle.

    If the Green Party gets labeled a terrorist group (which some in the Bush administration already have), I don't want my driving history subponead.

    On the other hand, yes these people signed a contract. Personally, I believe that any contract which doesn't involve the possibility of negotiation should not be given the full weight of law. The two parts of this issue where the Arizona based rental company failed were in notifying their customers that they would be tracked and failing to clarify that visiting beyond a neighboring state isn't a 1 dollar per mile additional charge but a fine for the total number of miles driven during the rental period including inside the agreed upon area and out. The "no harm, no foul" person is quite reasonable in assuming that he's not being tracked (The EULA doesn't forbid them from contacting your parents and asking about your sexual history, but some privacy should be expected). If he's not being explicitly tracked, then the "neighboring states" provision is intended to keep the user within a reasonable area. So if you drive within the radius of the popular destinations in the surrounding states, you are in a reasonable area, and will be happily keeping up your end of the bargain, if not technically the unenforcable contract.

    Iowa and Kansas aren't technically neighbor states, but I doubt anyone will consider it out of bounds to drive a rental car from Des Moines to Topeka.

    Quite frankly a 5000 dollar fine from an obviously confusing portion of the contract resting on evidence that has been thrown out of another court as invasive for driving 5% of their trip in one of the safer states in the union is simple exploitive gouging through and through.
  • I travel weekly, and normally rent from Hertz (my company has a discount and they have GREAT service). I tried Budget a couple times, cause they were a little cheaper, and I just got horrible service. The woman behind the counter was rude, took a personal phone call while I was trying to rent, the car had problems, the list goes on and on. Knowing now that they would possible could be tracking me as I drive makes me NEVER want to rent from them in the future. Great marketing move on their part.
  • we often talk about nations needing more transparency in their financial practices to ensure better accountability, to reduce graft and corruption, etc.

    of course the deeper issue is when the nation hides less overall, they hide less crime. it makes sense.

    so why does this apply only to nations and not individuals?

    i'm serious, i'm not a troll or an idiot. the obvious response is a government defines something as a crime, then you are penalized for it, even if there is no real "crime" or only a "crime" as defined by a narrow interest group abusing their political power.

    but this is intellectually dishonest: it doesn't follow through completely with the thought about transparency in individual identity. crime is done under the veil of anonymity. it is. it is just a plain fact. we have more to lose in many ways by preserving anonymity than with creating a real, common sense policy with real teeth about the abuse of using our personal info. i am serious, don't knee-jerk react to what i am saying, follow my thinking.

    rather than not track us, track us with an intelligent policy: keep our medical records for example, so any doctor can see, but not spammers, nor hmos hell-bent on denying us medical care for any stupid reason. well, sounds nice, but it will be abused, or moronic governemnt bureacracy will have the info spoofed out from under them or stolen. why is this a certainty? why can't the way we think about private information about ourselves evolve so that we recognize what is really at stake and impose harsh penalties- real harsh penalties for abuse of personal information?

    the problem, of course, is partially ourselves, not the governement. some of us are very careful, some of are just plain stupid about how we handle our personal identity information.

    i think, unfortunately for many reasons, that the weight of history is moving against anonymity in real life. technology makes it easier and easier to track us every day. i think that this will leak into corporate and governmental policy about customers and citizens no matter how much we kick and scream. but the POLICY about how this info can be used can be clearly delineated, and abuse can be clearly caught and handled. companies should not be able to trade our private info with such ease. governments should track and use our private info only under very clear circumstances, and never because of social policy- why is this so hard to do? it isn't! why is their less focus on policy about private info and more focus on kicking and screaming about anonymity? it should rightly be the other way around i think.

    i think this is the next real battlefield about anonymity: not keeping our anonymity, i think that game is rapidly being lost, but what is done with our information and by whom. that is the real war it think, and i don't think it is a hard war: only if you are a paranoid schizophrenic who believes our government and corporations are hell-bent on turning us into slaves can you discount common sense and the obvious prevailing popular desire about keeping our info safe and secure.

    and maybe some of us can be saved from ourselves, those of us who are not careful with their personal info, because in many cases, it is not big companies and big government who is our enemy about private info, it is us uncareful and convenience obsessed selves. we want it all, without common sense about REAL anonymity and private policy.

  • Do any of you Libertarians know what a contract is (Score:3, Insightful)

    by gelfling ( 6534 ) on Sunday July 07, 2002 @12:38AM (#3835712) Homepage Journal
    All you pooh poohers flaming anyone critical of this policy clearly don't understand that contracts are not supposed to be exploitive or hidden or one sided or vague or invasive.

    You do understand that don't you?

    What if the 'contract' stated you couldn't but gas except at the rental agency for 3x the retail price but the terms were so vague you didn't read or understand them and they assessed you a $20,000 fine. Still feel good? What if your 'contract' said they could bill your credit card ANY AMOUNT without your knowledge or permission? Still get your Libertarian juices flowing?

    Is your cable bill a contract? By your reasoning it is. What if your cable 'contract' stated which pay per view events you were allowed to purchase and that there was penalty if you 'broke' the terms? Still boxing for Adam Smith and John Locke?

    You people wave the word contract around like you know what you're talking about. You do know that some contracts are illegal right?

  • Is "your" car yours? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Sunday July 07, 2002 @01:46AM (#3835876) Homepage
    If you're still making payments on your car, you probably don't own it. The creditor might want a similar device installed. And, of course, it would be appropriate for leased cars.

    This is done right now at the low end of the market. There are thousands of people driving around in cars that will stop running if they miss a payment. [americandealer.com]

    See the site of Payment Protection Systems [ppsontime.com], whose motto is "Changing Behavior Through Technology". Their "OnTime" system is primitive; it's just a timer, which resets when given a new key code provided by the payment processor. If not reset, the car won't start. There are warning beeps, a day countdown, and an emergency override you can use once.

    The next step up is Payment Sentry [paymentsentry.com], with the slogan "It's Like Having a Collector in the Car!". Payment Sentry uses the Skytel paging system to send remote commands to the car, like "sound audible make-payment warning", "disable starter" or "sound alarm horn". It's one-way, though; there's no back channel.

    Finally, there's Tracker International [tracker-in...tional.com], a full-service vehicle tracking operation. Their GeoTraxx uses GPS and cellular data networks to transmit location. "Using GPS, vehicles can be pinpointed to within 36 feet. Location is fast, too. ... Often, same day location and repo takes place!" They even have a live demo [tracker-in...tional.com], although it's not working at the moment.

  • Its all about insurance. (Score:3, Informative)

    by TeddyR ( 4176 ) on Sunday July 07, 2002 @06:20AM (#3836271) Homepage Journal

    Car rental companies get MUCH better deals for coverage from the insurance companies when they restrict the use of the vehicule to a certain range from the base site.

    In some areas if the vehicule is only used in ONE state, then they may have a lower tax bill for the commercial nature of the use for the vehicule.

    Some local branches get charged more by their "parent company" for "one-way" trips since there are "recovery costs" involved in getting the vehicule back/ reassigned to a different branch.

    Normally those costs are simply passed on to the consumer; but then you get those "el-cheapo" rates that attempt to be lower than the competitionn, and they add those unclear restrictions.

    But then think of what industry they are in... [have you recently tried to price an airline ticket and actually looked at the restritions disclaimer? There can be a large difference in what can be done between some flights that all have the exact same price]

    Still... I personally will think twice before renting from budget again. [and I DO read the fine print...] especially since their contract is NOT clear on ALOT of stuff; and the non-disclosure of the GPS annoys me as well.

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