Story perspectives

GM Pays $12.75 M, Halts OnStar Data Sales

5/11/2026

Summary

GM Data Settlement

General Motors will pay $12.75 million to settle a California lawsuit about OnStar driver-data collection, announced by Attorney General Rob Bonta.
The settlement bars GM from selling driving data to LexisNexis and Verisk for five years and requires deletion within 180 days unless consented.
GM must provide clear OnStar privacy notices, obtain separate consent for each data type, allow remote location-tracking disable, and earn about $20 million from data sales 2016-2024.

Summary

GM Challenges Ban

GM argued in a 2025 filing that data collected on public roads creates no privacy claim.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) barred GM from selling data for five years and required affirmative consent.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton called practice invasive while Nebraska, Indiana and Arkansas opened investigations.
California applied the 2023 data-minimisation rule for the first time after penalties on Ford and Honda, stemming from a 2024 New York Times story.

Summary

GM Ends Service

GM settled with Reuters to end the Smart Driver telematics service it discontinued in 2024.
GM’s market capitalization stands at $71.05 billion with shares trading between $87.62 and $46.82.
The stock rose 65.89% in twelve months and entered a mid-term consolidation phase with momentum, per Benzinga’s Edge analysis.
Benzinga released the article on 2026-05-10, labeling it center-leaning with a 42.28 reliability score, and noted AI tools aided production before editorial review.

History

Historical Context

The FTC’s 2012 settlement with Google—imposing a $22.5 million civil penalty for violating a consent order on illicit data tracking—was the agency’s first fine against a private firm and signaled aggressive privacy enforcement. That precedent underpins today’s joint action by the FTC and California Attorney General Rob Bonta, which bars General Motors from selling OnStar data without consent and mandates a 180-day deletion window.

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GM Data Settlement

General Motors will pay $12.75 million to settle a California lawsuit about OnStar driver-data collection, announced by Attorney General Rob Bonta.
The settlement bars GM from selling driving data to LexisNexis and Verisk for five years and requires deletion within 180 days unless consented.
GM must provide clear OnStar privacy notices, obtain separate consent for each data type, allow remote location-tracking disable, and earn about $20 million from data sales 2016-2024.

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