[Nessal]

Originally Posted by BlueDragonVT

Sorry, but that analogy is completely incorrect. Think something more like this: You are playing a video game on your PS3 through your TV, when your cable provider interrupts your game in order to advertise themselves. When you sign up for cable, or pick up a broadcast transmission, you are accepting the fact that advertisement IN THEIR BROADCAST is a part of the way the provider pays for the service. That doesn't mean they get to break in and pitch themselves whenever you are using the connected device. Onstar breaking into your system in order to pimp their product actually represents an unethical misuse of their access to YOUR PROPERTY. Now personally, I like Onstar, and intend to keep it. Then again, I have never had this issue, and would cancel the service if I encountered this type of treatment from any company I did business with. It is a similar abuse of power to the situation we saw six months ago, where Onstar decided that they were going to continue to collect data from cancelled customers, and sell that data to third parties. That one nearly cost them the majority of their subscriber base and a class action lawsuit, until they backed down and decided it was a bad idea. In the age of electronic access, companies increasingly need to remember that just because they may have the technical ability to do something, that doesn't mean that they should do it, or that they have the right to do it.

Exactly.