Cars recording and sending data to manufacturer

[flatso]

Picked up the "Auto Blöd" weekly magazine today and read some reports of people being called by their BMW dealers and being asked to make an appointment to come in for a service check-up. Upon questioning how they came to the idea of making the call, the dealer mentioned that the car sends this data automatically to them. Others have mentioned being told that the reason for their brakes wearing out is due to their driving style on the autobahn according to the stored data.
This raises some interesting questions about this whole "connected car" trend, that especially BMW has been spearheading for the last few years.
Does anyone have any information about this?