"General Motors sold the data of California drivers without their knowledge or consent," says California's attorney general, "and despite numerous statements reassuring drivers that it would not do so."
In 2024, The New York Times "reported that automakers including GM were sharing information about their customers' driving behavior with insurance companies," remembers TechCrunch, "and that some customers were concerned that their insurance rates had gone up as a result."
Now General Motors "has reached a privacy-related settlement with a group of law enforcement agencies led by California Attorney General Rob Bonta..."
The settlement announcement from Bonta's office similarly alleges that GM sold "the names, contact information, geolocation data, and driving behavior data of hundreds of thousands of Californians" to Verisk Analytics and LexisNexis Risk Solutions, which are both data brokers. Bonta's office further alleges that this data was collected through GM's OnStar program, and that the company made roughly $20 million from data sales.
However, Bonta's office also said the data did not lead to increased insurance prices in California, "likely because under California's insurance laws, insurers are prohibited from using driving data to set insurance rates."
As part of the settlement, GM has agreed to pay $12.75 million in civil penalties and to stop selling driving data to any consumer reporting agencies for five years, Bonta's office said. GM has also agreed to delete any driver data that it still retains within 180 days (unless it obtains consent from customers), and to request that Lexis and Verisk delete that data.
"This trove of information included precise and personal location data that could identify the everyday habits and movements of Californians," according to the attorney general's announcement. The settlement "requires General Motors to abandon these illegal practices, and underscores the importance of the data minimization in California's privacy law — companies can't just hold on to data and use it later for another purpose."
"Modern cars are rolling data collection machines," said San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins. "Californians must have confidence that they know what data is being collected, how it is being used, and what their opt-out rights are... This case sends a strong message that law enforcement will take action when California privacy laws are not scrupulously followed."
Koji Suzuki has died. Although the man himself would have noted (as he frequently did in interviews) that he didn’t actually enjoy horror fiction very much, Suzuki was best-known for his contributions to the genre—most especially his 1991 novel Ring, a massive bestseller that managed to launch film franchises on both sides of the Pacific. Sometimes referred to as “the Japanese Stephen King,” Suzuki was an occasionally baffled godfather to the “J-horror” subgenre he helped launch, pushing against its bounds even as he continued to periodically indulge his darker (and more lucrative) literary impulses. Suzuki’s death was reported today in Japan’s Asahi Shimbun newspaper; he was 68.
Born in Hamamatsu in Japan in the 1950s, Suzuki published his first novel, a fantasy romance called Paradise, in 1990. The next year, he followed it up with a much darker story, inspired by a mental image of several teenagers all dropping dead at the same time, despite not being in the same place. From there, thoughts of a haunted video tape and the deadly ghost inhabiting it coalesced into Ring, which sold more than 500,000 copies by the time filmmakers got hold of it in 1998. Hideo Nakata’s film version took the ticking clock and surreal rules of Suzuki’s novel, added a few visual flourishes—notably, the imagery of the work’s villain, hyper-influential ghost girl Sadako, crawling out of a TV set to claim her doomed victims—and catapulted the novel into the Japanese mainstream. (Gore Verbinski would repeat the trick Stateside, on a significantly higher budget, in 2002.)
Suzuki’s post-Ring books—including sequels Spiral, Loop, Birthday, S, and Tide—help illustrate how ill-at-ease he sometimes was with the popularity of his work in the horror genre. (Despite happily noting that one of the ways he resembled King was in the way his sudden success in the genre rocketed his family from struggle to a life of ease.) Suzuki was rarely, if ever, interested in writing simple ghost stories building on his earlier work, and the later Ring books are often complicated (some might argue convoluted) efforts to jam scientific thinking, theories about viruses and supercomputers, and other odd obsessions into the rules laid out by the original book. (Japanese filmmakers bit, but the Americans notably didn’t; in a 2004 New York Times interview, Suzuki laughed when asked about the writers of The Ring Two pretty much jettisoning all of his ideas in favor of their own script, saying, “It’s a little like the virus idea of The Ring, itself. It just keeps getting replicated, and I have no control over it.”)
Suzuki continued to write regularly, with adaptors picking and choosing from his more marketable ideas. (Jennifer Connelly film Dark Water, based on a short story, was pushed into theaters to capitalize on The Ring‘s popularity in 2005, while one of Suzuki’s stories about his beloved sailing, “Adrift,” got a film treatment in 2006.) The author seems to have been both bemused and delighted by his success: He reportedly spent his days sailing, taking motorcycle trips across America, and visiting the homes and haunts of the literary heroes he grew up on. (He also, we add with no judgment, once published a novella written on toilet paper; The Drop was apparently available for very frightened, but very regular, readers in three-roll packs circa 2009.) Suzuki published his final novel, a return to the horror genre titled Ubiquitous, in 2025. An English translation is reportedly in the works, although no release date has been publicized.
The late ’80s was all about those VHS and Beta video rentals. Aisles upon aisles, lining the walls of thousands and thousands of stores around the world, all filled with tapes promising to entertain, or better yet change your life in various meaningful ways: how to breakdance, how to quilt, how to psychically communicate with your cat.
“There's a video for everything,” Ben Hollis recalls thinking, as he was browsing his local rental store back in the day. “What if there was one for loneliness?”
Promotional material for Rent-A-Friend
At the time, in 1986, Ben was working for Career Dynamics, a startup producing tapes for corporate audiences. He had just wrapped up a video about retirement planning when the company told him there was enough money left over to make something small and personal. His then-dormant creative side came out.
Around that time, his first marriage was on the verge of collapse, which he admits may have quietly informed the project, even if he didn’t recognize it at the time. Rent-a-Friend was presented as a service, offering on-demand companionship. An aid to the down and out. But was it being genuine, or was this a gag gift? Watching it, you’ll find it settles somewhere between sincerity and performance.
“It came out kinda puzzling to many people,” Hollis says. “Was I being serious or not? Well, I wanted it all ways.” Ben admits he thought it could serve as a piece to advance his creative career while helping those in need of company at the same time.
The friend on offer, “Sam,” feels more genuine than not. He’s clearly not just a character. With the specificity of his stories, it becomes evident Sam is telling much of Ben’s own history.
When I ask him about it, he confirms. “I didn’t make up anything about Sam. Just the name.”
Ben's notes on the character of Sam
The photos on the tape are of Ben’s family. The yearbook is his. The girl he points out, Nancy, the one he had a 5 or 6 year crush on - that was definitely Ben's old crush. It's pretty evident and it's all laid out for you, a friend in need, to take in. It establishes trust. This man really does want you to know who he is and where he's coming from.
The confessional moment near the end of Rent-a-Friend is a real one too, where he cringes at the thought of how manipulative he was once upon a time. The slightly awkward energy throughout the tape is real. The stuffed animal he kisses on two occasions, it's real. The gift he shows off from his grandparents. The story of his bigger brother laying on him. The exited noise he'd make as a child! That's all Ben. The whole tape plays like a first date; over-sharing, searching for what to say next, a quiet desperation to get a laugh from a potential new companion. There’s a vulnerability to it and that is definitely the project’s greatest strength.
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During production Hollis worked from an outline on the floor, avoiding using a teleprompter, letting the tape unfold in one long, unbroken take. Nothing smoothed over. Nothing hidden.
“That’s how we wanted it,” he says.
There could have been a potential Rent-A-(blank) franchise
That desire to create something natural and earnest didn’t end there. Years later, Hollis became the host of Wild Chicago, a weekly local program where, dressed in a safari outfit, he highlighted the people and places of his home.
Ben in his Wild Chicago regalia
“It was a popular program, but I didn’t realize how much work it took to put up a half-hour series. I needed a break,” he says.
A few years later, an opportunity emerged to return to local television on his own terms, something that feels almost impossible now.
“I wanted to continue to explore Chicago and its suburbs without wearing the safari outfit. And I was enamoured with the idea of filming it all myself.”
Chicagoans are the stars of Ben Loves Chicago
What followed was Ben Loves Chicago, on Channel 50, a stripped-down evolution of his prior show. The series ran from 1996-1998 and became a kind of love letter to the people who made up his regional world - inventors of robots, alien abductees, Frank Sinatra impersonators, and passers-by on the sidewalk. There's a difference, as Ben puts it, between play and ridicule. There's a way of engaging with people without flattening them.
“I learned you ask questions and try to get out of the way,” he says. “It was basically me and the camera guy. We shot it on mini-DV, which was revolutionary. Very little supervision.”
Getting ready for a"BenCam" segment for Ben Loves Chicago, MiniDV in hand
The series would go on to win an Emmy Award (not his first.) At one point, Hollis showed me the statue - pretty damaged. “They’re brittle,” he said.
Across his Emmy Award-winning programs, in Rent-a-Friend, and in the projects he continues today, the same question keeps surfacing: how do you connect to your fellow human?
Now, decades later, Hollis can look back on that question and on himself from a distance.
“I get to see my work from 30 years ago,” he says. “I get this opportunity to look at me as a young man and ask myself what was going on there. There’s a slight disorientation in that. The person on screen begins to feel like someone else familiar, but separate."
A young Ben Hollis, bottom row, centre.
At the same time, there’s a gratitude Ben expresses. The work continues to circulate, finding new audiences and prompting reactions he never could have predicted: letters, phone calls, interviews, even a marriage proposal addressed to Sam.
“It’s an investment that’s paid off in ways I didn’t expect,” he says.
What carries through, and what we’re really happy to present on Eternal, is the feeling in these works. A tone that’s hard to pin down but easy to recognize: openness, curiosity, a light, playful warmth that feels increasingly rare in an era of endless content competing for your short attention span.
There’s a line Hollis remembers from a public speaking class: people don’t remember what you said, but how you made them feel.
“Connectivity is a big part of my work. I want to connect; a perceived deficit in my earthly life.”
Pictured above: Ben Loves Chicago Assistant Producer Dean Magdalin (left), Ben Hollis (Center), and Cameraman Dave Moore (right.)
After the chicken caesar wrap at the bar Little Victories went “super mega viral” on TikTok last year, bartender Eddy Gordillo says he’s making the most he’s ever made in his 15 years as a tipped worker across 60 bars and restaurants. The spike in customers has brought his hourly wage with tips up to […]
The Chinese government pressured Zambia to cancel RightsCon, the world’s largest digital human rights conference, at the last minute, according to the conference’s organizers. Beijing was upset that the speaker’s list included prominent figures from Taiwanese civil society, AccessNow, the group that organizes RightsCon, wrote Friday.
On Wednesday, guests and speakers from across the planet headed to Zambia to attend RightsCon, the largest digital human rights conference in the world. Zambian immigration officials turned away early arrivals, saying the conference had been cancelled. The African country’s government posted a vague message on Facebook saying the conference had been postponed. By the end of the day, event organizers Access Now officially cancelled the conference and told participants not to go to Africa.
RightsCon is a large conference that takes years to plan and hosts thousands of people. It requires a high level of coordination between Access Now and the host country and it’s odd to cancel something this logistically complicated five days before it begins. On Friday, Access Now revealed details about what happened in a blog post. WIRED earlier reported on the Chinese pressure.
“On April 27, one day after a government press release endorsed RightsCon, we received a phone call from [Zambia’s Ministry of Technology] about an urgent issue and were told that diplomats from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) were putting pressure on the Government of Zambia because Taiwanese civil society participants were planning to join us in person,” the post said.
“This development was extremely concerning and we immediately pushed back. Next, we opened up lines of communication with our Taiwanese participants, as is our practice when there is a potential risk for a specific community. While we needed more information, we continued to feel confident this was something we could address with the government,” Access Now added.
Scheduled speakers included Jo-Fan Yu, the CEO of the Taiwan Network Information Center, a non-profit that monitors Taiwan’s internet infrastructure, and E-Ling Chiu, the director of Amnesty International Taiwan. RightsCon was held in Taipei, Taiwan in 2025. China notoriously considers Taiwan to be part of China, and China has exerted pressure on countries and companies around the world to not acknowledge Taiwan’s independence.
After Zambia called Access Now, it posted a letter on Facebook and sent it to the rights group on WhatsApp. “This was our first official, written communication from the Ministry. According to the letter, the postponement was ‘necessitated by the need for comprehensive disclosure of critical information relating to key thematic issues proposed for discussion,’ which would be ‘essential to ensure full alignment with Zambia’s national values and broader public interest considerations,’” Access Now said in its blog.
“It is simply impossible to postpone an event the size and scale of RightsCon a week before it is set to start,” the organization added. “The summit requires more than a year of planning and preparation to host thousands of people and curate a program of more than 500 sessions.”
The language of the public letter was vague, but Access Now said its background conversations with Zambia were clear. “In order for RightsCon to continue, we would have to moderate specific topics and exclude communities at risk, including our Taiwanese participants, from in-person and online participation,” it said.
“This was our red line,” Access Now said. “Not because we were unwilling to engage, but because the conditions set before us were unacceptable and counter to what RightsCon is and what Access Now stands for.”
May Day was born out of the fight for an eight-hour workday in Chicago. Over the preceding decade, an international movement had grown to regulate the length of a working day, which could often run around 16 hours. Joining the fight, the American Federation of Labor set May 1, 1886, as the date that U.S. […]
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