The laws are there to protect you. Be happy that they exist because the principle encompasses many other things that you would agree to for your security, believe me.

As a buyer, you have a choice and are expected to make an educated, well informed decision. If this law gets in the way in any form, don't scoff at it, just move on to the next potential vehicle. Again, it's there to protect you and isn't shaped to make things easy or detailed for a buyer.

For example, I've flipped through the service history of the vehicle I bought earlier this year. I'm very happy that I have it to back up the history of the car for future reasons or just substantiate its pedigree. Would I have not bought this car if it didn't have it? Possibly. But looking at the data contained in this paperwork, I would definitely not want to have these documents fall in the wrong hands. There's even a receipt in here that has a previous owner's credit card number on it from when a window was replaced by a mobile unit and # hand written on the paperwork, and only from 2006. I cut that part of the receipt out and trashed it. Not exactly the kind of data you would find in a dealer's database, but i think you can understand the point of this security measure.

Calling the dealer for service history isn't going to expose this type of delicate information. But you can't draw lines around the issue and have to be forced to apply a law that covers it all.