With our class discussions focusing on the power of owning the data that users generate while using a company's proprietary software, this article about Toyota caught my attention.
Most people tend to agree that it is ok that Amazon owns and keeps secret the data generated by consumer purchases and browsing history (think of the famous "users that bought this item also bought this item"). Similarly, most people are ok with Google targeting advertisements based on data they collect while you are logged in to Google's world. I wonder if the legality of this will change based on Toyota's recent problems.
As the article points out, Toyota has equipped every car produced since 2001 with a proprietary "black box" known as an EDR that records information about the state of the car 5 seconds before a crash through 2 seconds after a crash. Toyota has repeatedly denied access to this data to crash victims and survivors. With the recent recall of 8 million Toyota vehicles, and the US government and consumers demanding answers to unexplained acceleration problems, it is very likely that Toyota will be forced to provide access to this data in the future.
If a company like Toyota can be legally forced to provide access to data that was generated through interactions with its product, I wonder if the precedent will carry over to companies like Amazon and Google that derive much of their competitive advantage from similar proprietary data.
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