Imagine your car playing you an ad based on your destination, vehicle information—and listening to your conversations.

Ford has patented a system that, per the filing, would use several different sources of information to customize ad content to play in your car. One such information stream that this hypothetical system would use to determine what sort of ads to serve could be could be the voice commands you’ve given to the car. It could also identify your voice and recognize you and your ad preferences, and those of your passengers. Finally, it could listen to your conversations and determine if it’s better to serve you a visual ad while you’re talking, or an audio ad when there’s a lull in the conversation.

If the system described in the patent knew that you were headed to the mall on the freeway based on destination information from the nav system and vehicle speed, it could consider how many ads to serve in the time you’ll be in the car, and whether to serve them on a screen or based through the audio system. If you respond more positively to audio ads, it might serve you more of those—how does every five minutes sound?

But what if the weather’s bad, traffic is heavy, and you’re chatting away with your passenger? Ford describes the system using the external sensors to perceive traffic levels and weather, and the internal microphone to understand conversational cadence, to “regulate the number (and relevance) of ads shown” to the occupants. Using the GPS, if it knows you’ve parked near a store, it might serve you ads relevant to that retail location. Got passengers? Maybe you get an audio ad, and they get a visual one.

Given how consumers feel about advertising and in-car privacy, it is difficult to imagine an implementation of this system that wouldn’t generate blowback. But again, the patent isn’t describing some imminent implementation; it just protects Ford’s IP that describes a possible system. That said, with the encroachment of subscription-based features, perhaps it’s only a matter of time before you’re accepting a $20/month discount to let your new Ford play you ads on your commute.

  • @[email protected]English
    40‱3 months ago

    Do they not realize this will hurt their Brand?

    Short term ad profits aren’t worth losing customers.

    • @[email protected]English
      49‱3 months ago

      They very much are for a lot of people. Lines goes up, you can give yourself a nice bonus payout and if things come crashing down you leave. With your golden parachute of course.

      • @[email protected]English
        14‱3 months ago

        In general, digital privacy invasions have been very successful because of attrition.

        Most people don’t care, those that do hold out, but then every competitor does the same and you no longer have any real alternatives. Eventually, the hold outs need to replace [car in this case] and the sting of the objectiknable change has faded, and they just move on.

        Rinse and repeat.

        We lost the fight for meaningful net neutrality, basic digital privacy rights, broadband limits, etc.

        They’ll win this one too. Eventually. Your phones and IoT with microphones are already doing it.

      • @[email protected]English
        9‱3 months ago

        I guess they might lose customers, but the ad revenue will offset it. Which could be a win for them. Less cars to produce for the same amount of money. If they survive everybody else will probably just follow suit. Like the car functionality subscriptions.

        I’m just sad we reached this point.

        Ban targeted advertising. Ban data gathering. You won’t even have to deal with the f***ing cookie banners anymore.

    • limonfiestaEnglish
      6‱3 months ago

      No, because the barrier to entry for car manufacturing is significant.

      If the other major car manufacturers weren’t already working a similar advertising system/platform, they’ve already scheduled multiple meetings to catch up.

      This isn’t a problem that will be solved by the market and competition, only by regulation.

      And I don’t consider tech savvy users learning how to hack and disable these features as a resolution, it’s just mitigation.