OnStar recently ruffled feathers - mine included, as you can read here - with a proposal to its terms and conditions that would maintain a connection between the company and your vehicle even after you cancelled the service.
I definitely wasn't the only one complaining about it, and no doubt thanks to all of the media outlets, bloggers and customers who made a fuss about it, OnStar has backed down. Originally, if you (or OnStar) cancelled the car-connection service, OnStar would still maintain its connection unless you called the company and specifically asked for them to take their electronic hands entirely off your vehicle. Disconnecting could take up to 60 days from that point.
Under the new policy, OnStar will only stay linked to your vehicle if you call and tell them that it's okay.
The company originally wanted to maintain the connection because then it could warn you about natural disasters or recalls affecting your vehicle, and it would have helped in "planning future services." (We have a GM car that had a recall on it. We got a notice in the mail, but nobody from OnStar dialed the car while we were driving it to let us know.)
I'm still rather gobsmacked that OnStar figured that if a customer didn't want the service, it would still be okay to keep the satellite watching over him and possibly gleaning information from his vehicle. At least it had the sense to step down when it discovered that no, we really aren't ready to act out the plot of 1984 in the so-called privacy of our own vehicles.