TomTom, the troubled GPS navigation device maker, was forced to quickly apologize after news reports came out about how the company had sold aggregate data on driving habits it collected from the devices to the Dutch government, who then used that data to figure out where to set up speed traps and speed cameras. TomTom claims they thought the data would just be used for improving traffic safety, not for speed traps (though, I would imagine that some would claim that speed traps are a way to improve traffic safety). TomTom’s CEO Harold Goddijn didn’t exactly come off as convincing in saying:

“We don’t like that because our customers don’t like it… We will prevent that type of usage of our data in the future.”

Of course, they could just not like it because it’s intrusive. Then they might have thought about it before selling the data. And it’s not clear how they can sell the data and only make sure that it’s used for one purpose and not others.

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