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OnStar was recently admonished by several senators for its plan to spy on people (even non-customers).

OnStar is apparently hoping to create a new revenue stream by collecting data about the movements of OnStar-equipped cars. Obviously, this data set will be more comprehensive—and, therefore, more lucrative—if it includes data from former OnStar subscribers as well as current ones. In an announcement e-mailed to subscribers earlier this month, the company said that, starting December 1, it would continue collecting data from subscribers even after they cancel their service. OnStar also said it reserved the right to sell aggregated and anonymized data to third parties.

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Sarah Palin's Yahoo account has been broken into and e-mails found there posted to Wikileaks. I would say this was a pretty rotten thing to do, but the perpetrators claim they did it to prove that Palin has been using her private e-mail to circumvent recordkeeping laws about government business. If that's true, then perhaps this needed to happen.

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I don't like OnStar. That said, here's an article about how OnStar can be used to remotely slow down and then disable stolen cars (particularly those involved in a high-speed chase).

I wonder how long it will be until they incorporate automatic ticketing for people who exceed the speed limit.

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For the switch to digital from analog, Onstar's fantastic customer service tactic is to completely abandon all analog users.

Naturally, there are many people who are up in arms about this (especially the people that fell for Onstar's deceptive ad campaign linking their service to happy endings to extremely unlikely scenarios).

An Onstar representative was quoted as saying "PPPPBBBBBLLLTTTT!!!" while thumbing his nose.