This study looks at how and with whom connected cars share your data

In news that should surprise very few, connected cars remain a complete privacy nightmare.

But now we have a better idea of what data those cars are giving away, and to whom, thanks to a study conducted by a team of researchers at Northeastern University and Consumer Reports.

Testing 21 cars from 19 different brands revealed patterns of traffic to advertisers and trackers, as well as data shared with Big Tech firms like Microsoft and Adobe.

All of the cars contacted a first-party domain (i.e., the OEM)—after all, all the cars tested were connected cars and that means connecting to something.

But some of the cars tested redirected their traffic to Wi-Fi, allowing the researchers to see traffic flows that were previously unobservable.