Bad Idea Alert: Ford Files Patent for In-Car Ads

The technology could listen to you and serve ads based on your preferences

written by Chase Bierenkoven^{Contributor
Chase Bierenkoven has been writing about cars in his head since he was a child. Now, he does it for real, covering automotive news and producing reviews for outlets like Edmunds, Forbes Wheels and CarBuzz. Chase's career as an automotive journalist began in 2020, and he has already written scores of road tests. Some favorites of Chase's include the Dodge Challenger 392, Mazda Miata, Kia EV6 and Bentley Bentayga. Outside his work with cars, Chase is often found justifying his latest broken German sports car to anyone that will listen or enjoying the outdoor spaces of his native Colorado.}
edited by Steven Ewing^{Director, Editorial Content
Steven Ewing has worked in the automotive industry since 2003. In that time, he's written thousands of car-related articles and tested just as many vehicles. Steven is Edmunds' director of editorial content and has previously been on staff at Winding Road magazine, Autoblog, Motor1.com, CNET Roadshow, and was the U.S. correspondent for Top Gear magazine. Steven has also contributed to Automobile magazine, Ars Technica, Car and Driver, The Drive, Jalopnik, SlashGear, and dozens of other publications. In his spare time, Steven loves to play the drums, cook, and lust over small JDM cars that never made it to the States.}
9/5/2024
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Ford filed a patent for a system that could display in-car advertisements.
The patent shows a system that can listen to you and serve up tailored ads based on your preferences.
The system can also discern a user's tolerance for ads, keeping them below a certain threshold.

From giving your data to the cops to charging subscription fees for amenities, it's clear that automakers want to stay involved in their customers' lives long after a vehicle is purchased. But the latest bit of potential interference, in our eyes, goes a step too far.

According to a report from Motor1 this week, Ford filed a patent for in-car advertising that could use your route, destination, speed, traffic, travel history and other data and then serve you ads across the vehicle’s screens. The system can “listen for dialogue between passengers and reduce the number of ads during conversations or play an audio ad when the cabin is quiet,” according to the report.

This system could use acoustic data to "understand the user's tolerance for a particular advertisement's count," the report said, so as not to annoy you too much. It could also use this data to serve you up tailored ads; hypothetically, you could pass a Target and see an ad for those shoes you viewed on the company's app last week.

Of course, Ford reminds us that companies — automotive or otherwise — file patent applications all the time; it's a "normal part of any strong business as the process protects new ideas and helps us build a robust portfolio of intellectual property," a spokesperson said in a statement.

"The ideas described within a patent application should not be viewed as an indication of our business or product plans," the Ford spokesperson said. "No matter what the patent application outlines, we will always put the customer first in the decision-making behind the development and marketing of new products and services."

Still, if the idea of this being implemented makes you upsetti spaghetti, don't worry, you aren't alone. But unfortunately, due to our weak consumer privacy laws here in the U.S., Ford is largely free to implement this patent if it wishes. Hopefully it won't.

by Chase Bierenkoven

Chase Bierenkoven has been writing about cars in his head since he was a child. Now, he does it for real, covering automotive news and producing reviews for outlets like Edmunds, Forbes Wheels and CarBuzz. Chase's career as an automotive journalist began in 2020, and he has already written scores of road tests. Some favorites of Chase's include the Dodge Challenger 392, Mazda Miata, Kia EV6 and Bentley Bentayga. Outside his work with cars, Chase is often found justifying his latest broken German sports car to anyone that will listen or enjoying the outdoor spaces of his native Colorado.

edited by Steven Ewing

Steven Ewing has worked in the automotive industry since 2003. In that time, he's written thousands of car-related articles and tested just as many vehicles. Steven is Edmunds' director of editorial content and has previously been on staff at Winding Road magazine, Autoblog, Motor1.com, CNET Roadshow, and was the U.S. correspondent for Top Gear magazine. Steven has also contributed to Automobile magazine, Ars Technica, Car and Driver, The Drive, Jalopnik, SlashGear, and dozens of other publications. In his spare time, Steven loves to play the drums, cook, and lust over small JDM cars that never made it to the States.