Many consumers assume that free apps earn revenue through advertising. However, some popular mobile applications generate additional income by collecting and sharing user data—including information about driving habits. Privacy advocates, regulators, and consumer protection groups have increasingly raised concerns about how driving behavior data gathered through smartphone apps can ultimately influence auto insurance underwriting decisions....
The global automotive industry is quietly undergoing one of the largest business model transformations in its history. For more than a century, automakers generated revenue primarily through vehicle sales and financing. Today, companies including General Motors, Ford, Stellantis and Tesla are pursuing a different objective: turning every connected vehicle into a recurring revenue platform. According...
Introduction A license plate is, by itself, an anonymous string of seven or eight characters. The privacy implications of the surveillance economy documented in Parts 1 and 2 of this series depend entirely on the ability of commercial actors to convert that string into a named individual — with an address, a phone number, a...
Introduction State motor vehicle agencies collected at least $282 million selling driver data to private companies in fiscal year 2024, as Part 1 of this series reported. That figure, however, represents only the regulated portion of the U.S. license plate data economy. A parallel and substantially larger ecosystem of private surveillance networks, smart-billboard analytics platforms...
Introduction State departments of motor vehicles collected at least $282 million in fiscal year 2024 by selling driver and vehicle records to private companies, according to a public-records investigation by InvestigateTV released in October 2025. The figure reflects responses from only 23 of 50 state agencies, suggesting the national total is materially higher. The disclosures,...
The former Aeromarine landfill in Keyport, New Jersey, is drawing renewed attention as environmental advocates and residents question whether decades of inadequate oversight contributed to ongoing public health concerns. The site has become part of a broader statewide conversation about New Jersey’s aging landfill infrastructure, unfunded remediation obligations, and the long-term environmental risks tied to...
For years, the former Aeromarine landfill in Keyport, New Jersey sat quietly along the shoreline of Raritan Bay — deteriorating in plain sight while environmental violations accumulated and nearby residents grew increasingly alarmed. Now, a suspected cancer cluster has pushed the long-forgotten landfill into the center of a growing public accountability crisis. The renewed scrutiny...
WASHINGTON, D.C. — May 17, 2026 — Parents in the United States are facing a growing legal contradiction. Prosecutors are increasingly holding mothers and fathers criminally responsible for their children’s misconduct, while lawmakers continue to expand minors’ rights to obtain medical treatment without parental approval. Legal scholars say the two trends are moving in opposite...
The Viral Video That Exposed a Larger Policy Problem A viral video from Georgia has turned a local land dispute into a national debate over property rights and corporate subsidies. In the footage, a young woman describes how her mother’s home in Coweta County is being taken through eminent domain so that Georgia Power can...
New York is poised to become the second U.S. state, after California, to ban potassium bromate, red dye No. 3, and propylparaben from its food supply. The bill also closes a long-debated federal regulatory loophole — and could shape national manufacturing decisions well beyond the state line. On April 21, 2026, the New York State...