| Platforms not providing OAuth and the ability to delegate access to an appropriate sub-set of data and utility permission is nothing new. Almost every major platform I can think of was slow to provide what it's innovation community wanted - I remember giving countless apps my Twitter or LinkedIn passwords in order to access 3rd party functionality and value. Blackberry/RIM held a frightening number of email address and passwords in order for the service to work. But there's something very uncomfortable about surrendering my EV's credentials to the point that I just won't do it. I bristle not only at giving away access to my current location but also where I'm going. I don't especially like the idea of Tesla having all this data but I'm certainly not comfortable with small startups having it. In the event that security is compromised there's also too much opportunity for mass-griefing and inconveniencing - locking me out of my car, heating my car at the highest temperature (I won't go on, but you get the point). My take is that the engineers at Tesla know how to build OAuth - they intentionally are not doing this because the company is not ready for this world or prepared to accept it - yet. By requiring you to give away the farm with your username and password it maintains a high stakes 'all or nothing' which I'm sure they hope will put off most of their customers. Give it time, but once these companies do have petitioned permissioning I'm not sure what the value add will be for these startups like Telematica. |
The government can toss you in jail if they don’t like the cut of your jib, and this data lets them find a way to do so quasi-legally. Small data-hungry startups can’t really damage you with this data by comparison.
The privacy ship has sailed. If you want location privacy, rip out the GSM transceiver in your car and turn location services off on your phones.
Even then the GSM towers are following you and selling your location tracks, but at least it’s slightly harder to tie to your other data then.