Ford seeks patent for tech that listens to driver conversations to serve ads

If Ford does this, every other car company will find ways to license or come up with competing patents then do the same.

There is every incentive for informal collusion here and regulatory bodies are meant to express public sentiment that things like this are something that we, as a society, do not want.

My 2024 Toyota Sequoia has a touch screen but it’s only for the infotainment stuff. No essential part of the car is controlled through it. Lots of buttons and knobs in the car. I think it strikes a good balance. Even the audio has a simple knob to turn the volume up and down, and a volume control on the steering wheel. I skipped an entire decade of vehicles because I thought using a screen for everything was absolutely ridiculous.

I'm trying to think back to a situation where a product was shipped with something intrusive like this and customers didn't buy it. Can you help?

In practice often we can’t - people often prefer worse products and with user hostile features as long as they’re cheaper.

Well pretty much all car manufacturers today collect telemetry on driving habits, locations, and such, and more and more vehicles now have a built in cellular modem to send all that data back to the manufacturer. Their privacy policies also give them the ability to do whatever they like with that data [1], and there have been cases of them sending it to insurance companies and the like. Currently on some models you can physically remove the modem or antenna but in the future that may brick your vehicle or be prohibited by law or license agreements.

Today it's very hard to buy a car that doesn't have this tracking. I assure you that if Ford is making good money with this tech other manufacturers will follow.

1. https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/nissan/

True, but it does indicate a direction their R&D is going in, and it indicates the sorts of things they want to do. That's why these sorts of filings are big red flashing warning signs.

A few, slightly cynical hypotheticals:

1. Ford offers a "rental trim" package enabling advertising with a kickback to the rental company and a lowered upfront cost.

2. They collect the data anyway to support alternative revenue streams, even if they never manifest. Seen that before.

3. They use it in their commercial offerings instead, like school buses and airport shuttles.

Car crashes are the leading factor for years of life lost among Americans. Obesity, cancer and heart disease don't start killing till you're 60. On the other hand, cars do not practice such ageism.

They have touch screens because drivers want touch screens.

Perhaps this is well meaning, but there are countless ways to sabotage such a system.

Another example is the break assistant and collision avoidance. It isn't a solved problem and there are quite a few cases where cars break without any reason, which presents a huge danger itself. Still, such a system is now mandatory too.

That will make cars even more expensive. I think governments around the world are quite overtaxed...

Or give <targeted-family-member> a lift and talk about <survey-topic> to earn 30 days of ad-free seat heating

Edit: Also the risk that your application is rejected so that you don't get a blocking patent, which would mean anyone else can use the invention or even patent an improvement. An improver might even cite your rejected application in their applications for more draconian inventions, which could be demoralizing.

All I need is a stick shift and radio smart enough to parse and navigate mp3 files. The car doesn’t even have to come with that radio as it’s a trivial aftermarket upgrade.

You will not even be able to manually drive as you will be deemed too much of a hazard for all the autonomous cars.

Then again walking is quite healthy and if you have a train station nearby, why not. Writing this from a train going between the Netherlands and Sweden, a trip I make regularly. Quicker and cheaper than driving and I get to hack away while going places.

"You promise to educate and inform all users and occupants of your Vehicle about the Services and System features and limitations, the terms of the Agreement, including terms concerning data collection and use and privacy, and the Nissan Privacy Policy."

In addition some vehicles will display a notice on their navigation screens every time the car is started indicating that continued use of this vehicle implies consent to the agreements below. It's sort of like those banners appearing on some websites stating that all users are automatically subject to their legal agreements.

1. https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/nissan/

In reality society needs a healthy crop of entrepreneurs vigorously innovating every which way, with a minimal amount of common-sense regulation to prevent obvious abuses like this. Easier said than done.

While I can think of certain things that you might want to be able to do hands-free, these are mostly activities that don't have anything to do with the car itself. Hands-free radio controls, hands-free mobile calling etc. And I'd prefer that these features not be integrated into the car in a way that I can't choose to buy a car with, say, a different radio that doesn't have those features.

In other words, I can't think of a reason that a car should necessarily come pre-installed with any sort of microphone what-so-ever.

But the idea that there is not only a microphone, but that it is sending what it picks up to some remote server, is a notion that I am deeply uncomfortable with.

Most people view the inside of their car as being somewhat akin to the inside of their home. While people might expect less privacy in a car than in their homes, there is still an expectation of privacy to a degree. And that privacy expectation is typically more auditory than visual (of course you can get tinted windows but people expect you might be able to see inside of a car, but not necessary hear what two people are saying to one another).