Clocks and phones aren’t the only devices that go tik-tok now, thanks to Mercedes-Benz. TikTok has cut a deal with car manufacturer Mercedes-Benz for the popular Chinese-owned social media app to appear on the new Mercedes-Benz E-Class’s updated MBUX infotainment system.
While the app will be in Mercedes-Benz cars in several markets in fall 2023, including the U.S., TechCrunch said the deal is illustrative of Mercedes-Benz’s “interest and presence in the Chinese market.”
TikTok is owned by Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-tied ByteDance, where Chinese employees can directly access U.S. user data. All companies in China are directly answerable to the CCP and the CCP enforces “civil-military fusion,” where everything in the economic and tech spheres is accessible to the Chinese military. The CCP does own a board seat and financial stake in ByteDance, even beyond the ability of the CCP to access all its data. GOP lawmakers including Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) have slammed TikTok as Chinese “spyware.”
Mercedes-Benz doesn’t share the concern. Its updated MBUX system features a “superscreen” across the whole car dashboard, TechCrunch reported. When the car is parked, drivers can bring up videos on the TikTok app, and passengers can use TikTok on their own screen while the car is moving. Not only can drivers not see the passenger screen, TechCrunch explained, but a driver monitoring system tracks where he’s looking. Nothing sketchy or overly intrusive there, right?
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Mercedes-Benz CEO Ola Källenius is excited to bring Chinese spyware to his cars. “It is highly, highly relevant,” he enthused about TikTok in Asia. “Let’s not forget that the average age of an S-Class owner in China is around or below 40 years old.” Because relevance is apparently more important than anything else? “When we choose all these different apps, we go market by market or region by region,” Källenius continued. “We look at what is the most used — music or film [and] so on — and we tried to go down that list.”
TikTok collects a concerning amount of detailed data from users, including faceprints, voiceprints, keystroke patterns and rhythms, device IDs, activity across multiple devices, apps and file names, audio settings, and time zone settings. No wonder Republicans have said putting TikTok on your phone (or car) is basically downloading spyware. Who knows what the CCP can do with such sensitive data — and who knows what data TikTok will collect from people’s cars?
TikTok isn’t the only tech giant making lucrative deals with Mercedes-Benz, per TechCrunch. “Mercedes and Google announced a long-term partnership designed to give the German automaker control over its IP and marketplace while offering drivers navigation, maps, and YouTube provided by the tech giant.” Other apps coming to the new Mercedes-Benz infotainment dashboard are Webex by Cisco apps, Zoom, Angry Birds, and Vivaldi web browser, according to TechCrunch. The car manufacturer has a new software architecture and app store.
And a new way for the CCP to spy on people.
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