Annals of the Erosion of Privacy (cont’d.): Roadrunner vs. Big Brother — The driver’s speed is transmitted back to the rental car company by a GPS onboard, which ‘allows rental car agents to “manage driver

behavior by auditing location information” and “receive boundary crossing and

excessive speed reports.” An agent can even shut a car off by remote control if it’s

going too fast or heading into territory it’s not supposed to be in.’ The police never pulled him over, but the company is fining the driver… exorbitantly. It’s all legal; it was in the fine print of the rental agreement the driver signed. And the company ‘claims it’s for humanitarian reasons, that it’s not about collecting money.

“It saves lives by discouraging speeding. It’s an accepted [rental car] trade practice.” ‘ At $150 for each of the three instances of speeding, the renter found his bank account had already been drained of $450 by the time he returned the car. Now he’ll tell it to the judge. [Will you ever rent again from a company that uses GPS in this way? If a court upholds the rental car company’s practices, will you have a chance not to for long?] The New Haven Advocate