Ford’s Newest Patent Wants to Farm Your Data to Serve You In-Car Ads

Ford has filed a patent for a system that uses all sorts of data points to help determine what kind of in-car ads to serve to you, according to a report from Motor1.

The system parses mountains of data, such as your destination, route, speed, travel history, traffic, and more to determine types of in-car ads that it could display on the car's various screens. Ford will then gather information on the back end regarding how its drivers interact with said ads, to help it "understand the user's tolerance for a particular advertisement's count," said Motor1, quoting the patent.

More than just passive data gathering, though, this system appears to have an audio component. Future Ford models could listen to your conversations, to perhaps reduce the number of ads that show up during conversation or to focus on what you're saying to help better hone in on the type of ads that it might serve to you. Suddenly, uttering "man, I sure could use a burger" to your co-driver could spawn an ad for the nearest Chili's.

If we're being honest, yet another step on the seemingly inevitable march toward ubiquitous surveillance is not at all appealing. It's also not surprising: GM used to have a system called Marketplace in some of its vehicles that would enable users to order food, make dinner reservations, and more, but it shut down that system in 2022. However, expect the idea to resurface again in some other form in the years to come.

As automakers hunt around for new sources of revenue, the idea of becoming a "tech company" and somehow monetizing the millions of terabytes of data generated by drivers every week gets ever more attractive to the bottom line. Remember, most of your internet experience is subsidized by advertising models that allow you to access videos, songs, and billions of stories online for free. It's a dark bargain, but one that has become so normal in our everyday lives that we don't think twice about it.

If you needed another reason to hold on to that older car, maybe this is your sign.