New Lexus Models To Be Rolling Spam Targets

January 13th, 2009 20:50 pm | by Ed |

I had just finished reading an enlightening review of the alli weight loss pills (what can I say? At 350lbs I'm thinking about it seriously.) and what was the next thing I saw? A story about how the later this year Lexus is going to roll out a system that allows them to target advertising messages to individual vehicle owners based on the model they have and their zip code.

These messages will be in audio format and will be delivered from the car's navigation system when it's started up. Like we don't get enough spam in email (I average over 400 a day across several accounts), the telemarketers on the phone and the Instant messaging & SMS Txt messaging spam. When you combine those sources with the advertising on television you've got an enormous amount of advertising getting blasted at us on a constant basis.

The story did indicate that it would be possible for the driver to turn the nav system off to stop the ads (although they would still be in the system, presumably possible to delete without listening to 'em). I can't help wondering how long it'll take them to decide to change it so that you can't turn the ads off?

This has made up my mind on one point however. I will *never* own such a vehicle.

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