THE DATA POLICE HAVE ARRIVED
Most recently there has been a bold new wave washing over the automotive dealership landscape. Beginning with TrueCar, whose CEO bragged about using data to eliminate dealerships and lower profits below True Cost. He arrogantly taunted us with claims of "Transparency" which has become the "Buzz Word" of every vendor using our own data to virtually put us out of business, to steal our customers information, and sell it, pass it on to their affiliate companies, and otherwise resell it to third and fourth parties.
WELL, the revolution is here... and we, the dealers, managers, and industry loyalists are committed to locking down the DATA. Remember, cockroaches run when you shine a light on them.
We realize that vendors need access to SOME DATA to be able to perform their services BUT, virtually every vendor taking Data from the dealers- Data that ultimately shows up elsewhere being used against us - every vendor is taking far more Data than necessary and making dealers sign agreements that they can resell it, and pass it to affiliates, and that the VENDOR OWNS your customer data.
So many Dealers have signed contracts that THE VENDOR OWNS YOUR DATA.
THAT IS SO WRONG. By what right does any vendor you are paying have to claim to own your customers? That is total backwards crap and you know it. DEALERS-Your data is your BLUE SKY and you are signing contracts that allow vendors to own your customers and steal your legacy.
These vendors include, DMS Providers, CRM Companies, Lead Providers, Third Party Aggregators... and others, there are even OEMs (Manufacturers) stealing data from service and sales and even finance information on your customers and redistributing it.
The purpose of this BLOG is THE FIRST SHOT in the Data Reclamation Revolution.
We intend to educate Dealers as to what vendors are lifting your DATA... what they're doing with Your Data... Who they're selling it to or passing it along to.
Remember, the dealer is legally and liabilally responsible for the privacy and security of your data, not the vendor that contractually stole it and sold it.
AND we urge Dealers to responsibly call all of these vendors to task... either rewrite your contract or Cancel Them.
It is the purpose of this BLOG to expose those vendors and publish the offending parts of their agreements here. Remember, the vendor that screams loudest is probably the most guilty. JIM
Comment
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Comment by Linn Boyd on January 15, 2012 at 4:19pm -
@Jim there are more than one or two things that we could go about this. To read about the MTM attack you can here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man-in-the-middle_attack but basically what it means is that since a CRM vendor logged into a secure website at the store I could have captured all passwords etc. Also R&R wasn't encrypted for many years and I have seen other stores login with their admin passwords that haven't ever been chanced and you could pick it up from the road. Security in the dealerships has been a joke for many years.
What scares me is think about this some vendor has an SE give up their password due to some type of attack like this and not only is it a single dealership effected but every dealership that is served by that vendor. The Lowes credit card attack would be just a drop in the bucked compared to what can happen with the hosted DMS and CRM systems. I have been in the hosting/colocation industry for many years and going to a public "cloud" type of system with peoples credit information systems is very risky! Its not if one of these "cloud" solutions is going to get hit but when.
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Comment by Thomas A. Kelly on January 15, 2012 at 3:54pm
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Linn, Thanks!...please get technical, let it all hang out.
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Comment by James A. Ziegler on January 15, 2012 at 3:35pm
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Linn, welcome to this discussion...any technical and documented insights are appreciated. Some of the vendors we will be reining in are friends of mine and I fear I'll be sacrificing those friendships for a greater good result. I already know from experience , this Blog is the beginning of a major movement that will into an earthquake that will shake their worlds. JIM
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Comment by Linn Boyd on January 15, 2012 at 3:29pm
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@Jim it is so nice to see you publicly out this here! I have been telling dealers about this for years I have seen CRM's etc say we don't sell your data and then you put a test information out and get promotional material to the address from your competition!
Also I have seen a CRM vendor log into live data of another store while giving a demo of how good their software is, the store had no clue that they were logging in from another dealers network. This same CRM vendor logged in on our network which allowed us to capture the password if we wanted to, I am not going to get technical with that but it is possible using a MTM attack.
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"One customer complained on the company’s discussion board: “For me the issue is that TomTom are not that explicit about how they will use your info when you purchase the device.”
THEY ARE SORRY THEY GOT CAUGHT!
lINK TO ARTICLE:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/3f80e432-7199-11e0-9b7a-00144feabdc0.html...
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@ Jim, All information becomes most relevant once aggregator's software triggers the snowball matching process. At best, we are their cheapest resource if we pay them to extract the info fro our DMS....Second would be to give it to them with out our paying them to take it...worst case for them would be for them to get it elsewhere and have to pay for it which they have been doing all along. The free and better than free ride is all we can stop without...and I hate to say it...government bodies becoming involved....it is not just automotive, it is everywhere!
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The dealers are the butt of the data joke...and it is a joke to the procurers, users and manipulators of our data as they are setting on piles of data that they know we can never discover. Everything we know added to what we can wildly speculate ....combined.... amounts to a drop in their bucket. Guys & Gals, in my opinion we are underestimating the size and scope of what has been amassed. Only Congressional intervention can even begin to slow the momentum. If dealers cut off Zag, TC, CarFax, and all the rest...... 100% today......ALL THE DATA IS STILL THERE FOR THEM TO RECONSTRUCT FROM SOURCES KNOWN AND UNKNOWN TO US.
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With CarFax, or any vendor for that matter, they do get Data from sources other than Dealers, BUT I assure you the most relevant information comes from us, whether they got it directly out of our computers or bought it from some one who did. When Dealers awaken and cut off unlimited data Access and question every vendor, scrutinize agreements (with our help) things will change. Monday morning onward I anticipate this Blog to soar.. JIM
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Kevin, Reynolds and Reynolds, Bob Brockman and company, always been hard to deal with but, by the same token, I suspect they are as concerned about Data Proliferation as any. Whether or not they are participating in reselling is an answer i do not know.
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