Strong regulation can nudge automakers to improve customers’ privacy, research suggests New research asserts that while few automakers strongly protect website and customer portal users’ privacy, one company drastically improved its practices after California’s privacy regulator fined it in March for allegedly failing to implement relevant standards required under state law. A report released Wednesday by the watchdog Privacy4Cars scored 44 car brands on a scale of 0-5. The median ranking was 1.7 for a host of privacy practices, including whether companies easily allow consumers and agents acting on their behalf to file opt-out requests to prevent the sale and sharing of personal data. The scorecard shows that American Honda Motor Co. scored just 0.8 prior to the California Privacy…