The modern web has become difficult to navigate without ad blocking software. Ford now has a patent application that would bring the ads we hate to your vehicle’s infotainment system. [via PCMag]
Ford has already replied to criticism with the usual corporate spiel of patents not necessarily being the direction the company will go with future products, but it’s hard to imagine that other automakers aren’t planning similar systems since they’re already charging extra for heated seats, EV range, and performance. Bringing ads to the captive audience of your personal vehicle and targeting them based on listening to the occupants’ conversations would be a new low. Maybe you’ll be able to pay an extra $100/month for the “ad-free experience.”
Instead of taking advantage of the EV transition to make better, simpler cars, automakers are using their highly-computerized nature to extract more from you and provide less when you drive off the lot. Enshittification has come for the automobile. Perhaps auto executives should read A Few Reasonable Rules for the Responsible Use of New Technology?
The first step of blocking these ads will likely be jailbraking the infotainment system. If that wasn’t enough, locking features behind a paywall has come for wheelchairs too.
Just out of curiosity, but wouldn’t sending ads to a car result in more distracted driving? We already have enough of that. Billboards, flashing signs, construction zones…ridiculous. Seems these days the only way I can not see any ads is to unplug, grab a book go to the park lay on a bench and read.
Good point!
Will Ford be liable if an ad distracts a driver and results in an accident?
Will the advertiser be liable?
I can envision the ads being served up when the driver sits down (you’ll be able to start your vehicle after this commercial break…) At the conclusion of your commute, the driver’s side door won’t open until a word from our sponsor…
Since you’ve just stopped at a red light, how about a word from our sponsor? The gas pedal will be disabled for 30 seconds.
Can’t hear the ads over the angry horns from behind because the red light turned green and the gas pedal is still locked out.
Horrible to think but entirely likely.
Car on fire, driver can’t get out because of 3 minutes unskippable ad? In-car video ad for captive audience are bad idea.
That’s of no concern – there will NEVER be a direct control connection between any core car functionality and the infotainment system. /S
Just imagine a malware infested add campaign taking your car hostage until you pay 0,001 Bitcoin. Wait…
I know that was sarcasm from the provided /S markup, but isn’t that how a journalist was rolled a Jeep about 10 years ago?
[googles]
July 2015 – Hackers Remotely Kill a Jeep on the Highway—With Me in It
“Their code is an automaker’s nightmare: software that lets hackers send commands through the Jeep’s entertainment system to its dashboard functions, steering, brakes, and transmission, all from a laptop that may be across the country.”
Again, this was 2015.
Yep. And to my knowledge, there’s still nothing keeping the infotainment system from having full access to the canbus.
I have an entire screed on my ‘ideal next vehicle’, and ‘cloud connected car’ has zero part in any of it.
Oh I’m well aware of that.
Kinda why I wrote that and thinking about it I’m a bit surprised I’ve not yet heard of any car specific malware…
Maybe criminals avoid that because the blowback would be to high/dangerous/big(?)?
[limroh]
“Maybe criminals avoid that because the blowback would be to high/dangerous/big(?)?”
Or maybe three letter agencies don’t like competiton?
B^)
It is amazing to see the mental gymnastics in play when it comes to greed and AD revenue.
i think id surgically remove the infotainment system and replace it with a raspberry pi and an aftermarket car amp. good thing i dont drive.
John deeres drm is just the first foothold.
Probably won’t be able to get a vehicle passed for inspection if the infomercial delivery system has been disabled or bypassed. My money says the comming mandatory telemetrics ( “for driving safety”) will be tied into the same software/system that targets the adverts to your locations, driving habits, etc.
Yeah just to make it legitimate they’ll make it inseparable from a safety feature.
Forget the safety feature, whatever it is, we probably dont need it.
They’ll probably make it handshake with the ECM/BCM/key reader.
They’d need guard robots too to stop people driving a screwdriver through the speakers I imagine.
That is to say for the handful that will object…
Warm the glue first. Helps it soak through the fabric better. Then you soak the “spider” around the voice coil. Keeps the continuity test/ping looking ok. Don’t know about sweeping tone and looking for back drive at resonance or inductance changes.
I got a feeling they’ll just ping a tone around the sound system to check the speakers nowdays beep one and listen through the others, swap speaker and repeat around the vehicle.
On the safety inspection thing? Probably Start with having some traffic or hazard alerts (Public Service Announcements aka “PSA” )
and they’ll likely be tied/built into the same override system/software as the adverts. Good chance it will get embedded as a corporate sponsored/funding thing.
Bah! A 1980s cassette car radio of course! (OK you Yanks are gonna say Bah! A 70s 8-Track of course!)
70’s 8-track with one of those cassette adapters, and one of those cassette MP3 players in that, for the full anachronism experience.
I used to have one of those 8-track cassette adapters, and I still have the cassette MP3 player. The latter is kind of nifty — it detects when the spindle is doing fast-forward or reverse, and it will skip to the next or previous file accordingly, and provide a brief pause to trigger the cassette deck’s song-detection feature. Uses an SD card for storage so it’s easy to load up. I no longer have a car with a cassette deck, but I held onto the player just because it’s fun.
Boom Boxes in the back seat!
I used to work for an automotive manufacturer. The entire industry is desperate to find revenue sources. Manufacturing and settling cars has relatively thin margins, and investors expect infinite growth.
Ford motor company: net income 2023: $4.33 Billion.
We should start a gofundme then you think?
Could you include Hyundai and Toyota and Honda and whatever the domestic (to China) Chinese gasoline car company is for comparison? Or do those not count for some reason.
Also is under five billion an absurd amount of profit compared to other megacorps in 2024?
Well this entire article is about Ford and their patent after all…
And it seems to happen in more and more product spaces.
Somethin something, “tendency of the rate of profit to fall”, something…?
Is it happening in countries that actually allow non-mega-billionaire entryism into major industrial sectors? In the 1920s you could start a major commercial motorcycle company from a shed. You can still do that in parts of Asia but definitely not Ohio. So do you know why
As if building cars has suddenly become unprofitable because of “corporations” or “investors” (actually it is investors but not in the way many expect)
You really couldn’t get me to buy a new vehicle with built in celluar, particularly after GM was found sending everything you do to insurance companies. If I did, the first thing I would have to do is rip out the module with the radio and remove the antenna.
How long until your vehicle’s shitty OEM software gets hacked by a (pun intended) drive-by infection from ads?
This. I have driven a couple of EV’s and I just love the feel of them. Silence, immediate response, torque, all of it is nice. I don’t even have a problem with their current range, it’d be fine for me. But I JUST want a stupid f’in car. I don’t want any of that fancy crap that’ll be obsolete in a few years anyways.
A bluetooth connection for music/navigation with my phone, maybe an AC and cruise control, but that’s about it. I don’t want social media in my car. I don’t want huge distracting displays in my car. I just want to get from A to B and that should have as little distraction as possible. (Apprently there are a few options nowadays, but I haven’t looked in depth yet). I don’t really understand the tech hype, but maybe that’s just because I am a tech guy myself.
There is, of course, irony in these statements, as some of us started driving without these technologies and they were the fancy crap.
Ignoring the obvious differences proves that age does not always confer wisdom
I know it’s gross and hacky, and almost certainly not the answer you’re looking for, but in GM cars you can pull the fuse for OnStar. That disables the cellular system including the modem, so there’s no way for the car to phone home. The glass panel (which is about 7″, not stupidly huge like a Tesla iPad) still lets you do just about everything including energy management, cameras, all the normal driving kind of stuff. The radios, including SiriusXM and GPS still work. Adaptive cruise control still works. And you can still use CarPlay or Android Auto, so some of the lost functionality is still available via your phone.
The things you’ll lose are OnStar (of course) which includes the (optional $15/mo) emergency response call if your airbags are deployed, turn by turn navigation, and SuperCruise (GM’s optional $40/mo lane-keeping system). You’ll lose the SiriusXM internet stations. You’ll lose the ability to remotely access or locate the car via their app. You’ll lose automatic software updates (including map updates, bug fixes, upgrades, and downgrades.) And you’ll lose the “health checks” that do things like alert your phone if a tire’s pressure is low. But you’ll lose nothing you indicated in your post above that you wanted.
Something tells me you can just cancel OnStar and you’ll “lose” all of the above connectivity related stuff, but that means trusting GM which is pretty much the mistake you’re trying to avoid making anyway.
Is there an EV that doesnt insist in phoning home every 10 KM. I there is I would consider buying it for my mathon 12KM a week commute to the Supermarket and back :) Until then I will continue to drive my petrol guzzeling yarus ( aprox 40 MPG) in the old money. Yep I’m a crankey old fart and I havnt taken nthe advice of Sun Microsystems — Privacy get over — I dont even exist in google search and have been a constant internet user for 25 years.
Signed
Crankey old fart
Can’t phone home if you cut off all the antennas. Just sayin’.
You’d be suprised how much range you can get from things like a WiFi card in a laptop that’s got no antennas connected.
Short them out instead.
Depending on the antenna connector, there may be dummy loads available on the usual Chinese websites.
On second thought, I wonder if an in-line dummy load is available,
that would be harder for a technician to discover.
B^)
2014 Nissan Leaf, its telematics unit no longer connects because it only supports 2G. For commutes within the battery’s range it’s very useful.
Our 2 Subarus have the same 2G problem with StarLink.
It will be sometime in 2025 when an upgraded module will be available.
I won’t need one because I pretty much have lost all desire to own a new car.
They have made them as toxic as they are expensive!
Someone will though. Feel for them too.
I can do most repairs, and I know a couple shops well.
I am perfectly happy to drive a used car.
every time an exciting new tech product comes along i find myself completely uninterested because of all the scamware it contains. not interested.
Agree
Agreed. I decided some years ago that I’m never going to buy a new car (for myself; what my wife buys is a separate matter) with a touchscreen. I hate touchscreens — have since I saw one in the ’80s that used infrared LEDs and detectors in the bezel and none of the advances since have made me any fonder of the technology. Fortunately my current 10-year-old car and 30-year-old pickup still work fine.
Touch screens are the stupidest possible interface in a device that requires your focus constantly be on the road. Whoever first thought of putting one in a car should be shackled to Elon Musk and shoved into a rocket headed to Mars.
Bit extreme – a touch screen provides lots of flexibility and control options that would be virtually impossible with dials and switches. Which is a good thing when the vehicle is now often more complex and computerised as long as its primarily if not exclusively being used for all the stuff you don’t need on the move, and the dials and switches exist for everything a touch screen is fine, even ideal.
So for instance in those fancy cars with lots of camera to help you hit your parking spot properly a touch screen is a good interface to bring up the cameras you actually need in this situation, if its got some media player with your own music on USB stick or something being able to choose and make some playlists in the car to suit – as your usual heavy metal mixes probably are not the right choice to take your Grandparent somewhere. But if its the only way to crank the heater up or do the basics of volume and on-off for the radio…
Not that I’ll probably be able to purchase another new car in the future but if I can I certainly won’t be buying into this. Something else I saw recently was Tesla disabling a cyber truck that a Chechen warlord mounted a canon to. It got me thinking that’s just the start of social organizing. If you don’t fit in with what the corporation dictates they’ll disable your car, your cards and whatever else they can to shut you down.
Well, it’s obviously not your car then. I share your sentiment.
The same thing did John Deer with the tractors stolen from Ukraine.
So sometimes it can be a good thing but most of the time it is NOT what you want.
“Tesla disabling a cyber truck that a Chechen warlord mounted a canon to”
Defintiely shouldn’t mount clergymen to any car but Tesla does seem like a dogma for many
Just wait for the advertisers to work how to deliver ads to your dreams … Lightspeed briefs anyone ?
All things aside, how something like this can be patented? IMO we need to purge patenting system from the world.
Agreed. Not sure why anyone thought “government-enforced monopolies” would be a good idea. Two wrongs don’t make a right, after all.
Business practices can be patented, and I assume it’s that type of angle. Or some technical part of delivering ads in a “safe” way – there’s often some small details which are the actual core of the patent. And don’t forget that patents are handed out easily, it’s enforcing them where they get properly examined – the system being broken because small companies can’t afford to challenge them. Doesn’t mean this kinda thing should be covered.
Regardless, in this case, if the patent prevents competitors from putting ads in cars, that seems like a win to me!
Patents fundamentally serve an important role. As a company you would be actively discouraged from investing in new technology if after sinking millions into creating some awesome new thing to help people your competitor could just immediately copy it for 1/100th the cost. This is exactly why patents exist and also why they expire.
The real problem with patents is the patent office. If the patent office allows me to patents the concept of breathing oxygen I as a company am incentivized to patent this. The patent office must protect truly novel and innovative ideas but it must reject trash like this which any toddler could think of.
To be fair, the USPTO rejects about half of all applications (they publish annual stats), and most of the accepted ones go through at least one round of revise-and-resubmit.
Arguably that’s still way too high, but it’s not true that the USPTO (at least; haven’t investigated other countries’ patent processes) just rubber-stamps everything, as people sometimes allege. Also, many patents are defensive — they just go into a portfolio to encourage competitors to cross-license stuff, or to slap down patent trolls.
So the system certainly has problems but the situation is complex, which of course was part of the point you were making.
Who cares? State-enforced monopolies are still immoral. Someone should not be able to take away my right to manufacture and sell something, just because they made it first.
Do you believe that every invention through ought human history was done out of altruism? Because if you do not believe that insane idea then you must accept that people have selfish motivations to invent, one of which is profit. If you completely destroy that incentive structure then you destroy those inventions. This hurts all of humanity. A short term (as you keep ignoring 17 years is not infinite) monopoly is a small price to pay for something that benefits all.
Patent 1,085,971 – Essentially a patent on air conditioning from the early 1900s. I would say that a lot of poor people in a lot of countries would be very upset if you decided they could no longer spend $100 to not die of heat exhaustion.
Inventions help all. Encouraging more inventions helps all faster.
No you don’t, we already have them. Furthermore, technological innovation is not necessary for humanity to thrive. It’d be better if we just figured out how to manage our population instead of inventing more and more devices to squeeze resources and energy out of the earth.
[Anonymous]
“It’d be better if we just figured out how to manage our population instead of inventing more and more devices to squeeze resources and energy out of the earth.”
I don’t think you are referring to the population crash set to devastate the world’s population in 2050? We are very close to ZPG right now, and in 25 years most females will be past child bearing age at that time.
How does that play out when you are the one who made it first?
You expend significant money and other resources to ideate, design, prototype, refine, and bring to market a commercial product. Nice, now you’re poised to jump on the profit train.
The instant I see your product, I copy it. Not being bogged down by all of those pesky development costs, I jump ahead of you in setting up my production line. I’m a little bit better connected to distribution channels than you. You’re out of business with only a pile of debt to show for your blood, sweat, and years. And, my profit train just keeps getting longer.
That scenario has the makings of a society where only the wealthy can generate wealth for themselves because they can trample any little guy who dares to attempt invention or innovation.
That’s a hard pass from me.
So tax the wealthy and give stipends to inventors? I’d love to get paid to invent all day without worrying about having to earn money off of it. There are a million ways around this problem that don’t involve giving megacorps monopolies on producing widgets.
I will only buy car with infoBS system, if:
1) all chimes can be removed
2) all options can be enabled
3) assistents can be switchd to default off
4) spyware for EU can be made sending safe BS
5) ads can be stopped
Give me a car with 1DIN or 2DIN slot, no-radio media player (to get rid of radio tax) and i will be happy.
“3) assistents can be switchd to default off”
“Clippy here! It looks like you are about to make a left turn!”
Seems like a perfectly legitimate reason to take an axe to the dashboard and remove the advertainment system from the car roots and all.
There is exactly ZERO reason for my car to connect to the internet. Am I the only one going all Old Man Simpson and yelling at clouds over this?
Yeah I’m not getting one of those cars. I currently drive a 2007 Toyota and I’ll only be buying older than that. I don’t want black boxes that record my driving (all cars sold in the EU since this year) , camera’s on my face (Tesla for example), GPS speed limiters (required next year in the EU iirc), phoning home systems (pretty much all new cars).
I don’t even want an automatic, let alone all that junk.
Yup, I’m going to draw a line in the sand right here and say I will not be buying a car that serves ads. That’s just such a blatant cash grab with absolutely no benefit to the purchaser of the vehicle.
You’ve all missed driverless vehicle infotainment systems haven’t you? Imagine a 10 mile drive to Tesco (or any other supermarket), driverless, with purchase recommendations on the way. Marketing heaven.
As another mildly old fart I keep telling the youth that their most pressing problems are:
– global warming (finally accepted, though way too little is done)
– what I call “right to use offline” for hardware & software (“nobody” cares)
Well – “good night and good luck”
“You’ll own nothing and be happy”
Give me distraction free driving. With tactile buttons and knobs.
Lobotomize car, remove SIM!!
Car goes into limp mode……..
Lobotomize further, remove the motor controller and install your own.
From the perspective of car manufacturers and their changing business models, I can actually understand this – it therefore calls for regulation. Considering that car manufacturers are working on “car operating systems” that combine infotainment, engine control and other things that have been cleanly separated until now – I wouldn’t hope for jailbreaks or “removing the SIM” either. The only way woiuld be clear (and auditable) regulations for car manufacturers from the licensing authorities – in the interests of consumers. That would be a useful task for the EU Commission.
Too late. Several years ago I bought a used GM car. A few weeks later I almost drove off the road when a woman randomly started talking to me asking if I wanted to renew the account. Apparently, the Onstar account hadn’t been canceled when the car was sold.
While I understand your frustration, perhaps you shouldn’t be driving if something as simple as someone speaking/distracting you is enough for you to lose control over the car. If a small bird hits your windshield or a dog runs across the road, are you going to panic and drive off as well?
That’s exactly the reason i stopt driving two years ago while my license is valid for another 4 years (now using it for indentification).
I’m 70 and retired and have no need to drive myself.
Perhaps you don’t understand how unsettling it can be when a voice begins asking questions (in a very loud voice) while you’re in a sealed environment that doesn’t contain a human other than yourself. The average reaction is likely going to be some form of jerk reaction.
Exactly. This was 5:30 AM, in Michigan on an icy road, and after I specifically declined to activate Onstar at the dealership. Then the woman wouldn’t hang up.
It was bad enough that me owning the car and not activating Onstar didn’t cancel or unlink the old account from my car then the “Friendly” dealer sold my information.
So if I jumped out at you yelling BOO! you’d not flinch in any way…
If you knew I was there maybe you wouldn’t react, though not knowing what was about to happen you still probably would… Some people are twitchier than others, but anything entirely unexpected is at the very least a distraction, and to the twitchier folks that initial response especially on something with fast and light steering action is going to be really noticeable.
I don’t think this should be patentable and it should have been thrown away by the patent office, it seems like a trivial idea that just hasn’t been previously patented because it’s bad.
That being said, I’m fine with it as long as they don’t start licensing it to other car manufacturers, since it’ll keep others from trying it.
Next level : “Your subscription does not support emergency braking. Please swipe credit card to perform an emergency braking procedure and avoid a high speed impact with truck in front of vehicle.”
Given the state of the infotainment system (Android based) in my Honda this won’t go well. Mine routinely freezes and goes blank taking the entire speedometer with it. The manufacturer’s suggested fix is to stop the car, turn it off, open the driver’s door, close the driver’s door and restart the vehicle. That is until I found that I can insert a ‘rubber-duckie’ into the USB port that sends a CTRL+ALT+DEL to the system. Not dead yet.
Even if the ads only play when the vehicle is stopped it may be in violation of the distracted driving law. I’ve known people who were ticketed for using their phone at a stop light, which violates said distracted driving laws in my state.
At this stage of the game, it’s a matter of “when”, not “if”. Hopefully there will be consumer backlash and a company or two that see an opportunity to take market share by making cars that aren’t full of all kinds of shitbaggery – but only time will tell.
Consumers keep Apple in business. I have very little faith in consumers.
We are going to need an open source car.
And ensuring it is possible for such a thing to be street legal despite corporate lobbyists is going to be the fight of the century.
My C8 Corvette already asks me to upgrade my (non-existent) Google Play subscription on a monthly basis. Or it tells me I can’t do some operation without a subscription, despite not having requested it to do anything beyond turn the car on/off. There’s no way to turn it off, even though I will never add such a subscription. So, it’s already an ad-based system, it’s just those ads are currently limited to Google Play.
I will not tolerate a connected car. If there is no other option in the future I will install or carry with me a RF inhibitor.
But that might interfere with your mandatory government installed biochip!
Brave New World
PLEASE DRINK VERIFICATION CAN
You misspelled “Nuka Cola”!
B^)
Personally I am all for simplification. Let your ‘phone’ be the infotainment/navigation/GPS system if that is what you desire. Just don’t need another one in the the car itself. All in for the KISS principle. Less to go wrong, less maintenance and less cost…
I’ve actually written a seperate screed about this:
https://jecook.dreamwidth.org/527733.html
The TL;DR is:
I WANT BUTTONS AND KNOBS, NOT TOUCH SCREENS.
NO. SMARTPHONE. APP. PERIOD
NO. INTERNET. CONNECTIVITY. PERIOD
No “Connected Services”. If I’m putting in heated seats, It should (like anything physical) be a ‘pay once’ arrangement with no effing subscriptions.
If the media playback system has bluetooth, it SHALL BE disconnected from the car’s CANBUS.
The media playback system should have a screen no larger than 7 inches diagonal.
The only integration I’d want would be a backup camera, and have it plug directly into the media playback system or a dedicated display embedded in the rear-view mirror.
Amen.
No microphone/camera built into car. PERIOD.
Media playback can call be done with a cell phone (or a after market device) if this is something you do/want. The usb port should be just for power. Either for your cell or a playback device. So obvious… And simple.
Should add. The backup Camera is an ‘ok’ feature as it actually makes sense. Just not a passenger facing camera(s).
“Just not a passenger facing camera(s).”
Once located, a drop of black silicone RTV should suffice.
I’m a little surprised Ford could get a patent for this: seems too obvious.
Anyhow, this means that only Ford has the right to implement this; any other automaker would need to get permission from Ford. Ford could feasibly just sit on it and prosecute anyone who puts targeted ads in their infotainment system; that doesn’t mean that they will, but one can hope.
First, it’s a published patent APPLICATION, not an issued patent!
Second, the claims are poorly drafted, but seem to claim picking ads based on car information (location, speed, etc.), user information (route or destination prediction, etc.), audio signals in the vehicle, and/or historical user data, and then displaying the selected ads.
Yep, it is an application, not issued. Thanks for the correction!
Google Maps got us a few weeks ago, “Turn right at ‘something-something route’ at the Bank of America, with 24 hour drive through.”
Something like that. I would not have thought badly of it, had it not been for that addition of the “with 24 hour drive through”.
In the not so distant future I’ll need a new navigation app.
Anyone install one of those insurance company devices that allegedly lower your rates if you drive good? That’s the thin edge of one hell of a wedge.
For the first time, this week my local self-serve gas pump played ads while i filled up. Phukkers.
Not always, but usually one of the buttons around the edge of the screen has a mute function.
I have one from State Farm. I’ve not noticed anything other than what is shown on their app. However, I live in New Jersey where self-service gasoline is illegal.
There are a ton of ways around this: build your own car, get an old car and fix it up or convert it to electric, ride a motorcycle, ride a bike, walk, take the train, take the bus, put cardboard over the infotainment system and disconnect it from the speakers, or even.. I dunno, hack it?
Restore an armored military vehicle?
Doesn’t even need to armoured, lots of light vehicles and goods vehicles that are not armoured but came from the military. Assuming its the military requisition budgets that has lead you to wanting to restore one, and not the fact it has armour…
“The first step of blocking these ads will likely be jailbraking the infotainment system.”
Please correct me if I am wrong. I remember situation from few years back where hacking infotainment system gave the attacker possibility to remotely stop the car. Apparently (if memory serves well – usually not) infotainment was on the same system as some other critical functions (it was on QNX and car manufacturer tried to blame OS maker but appeared they just didn’t know how to properly write apps for QNX). So trying to jailbreak infotainment implemented like this may be considered as accessing and changing car critical systems.
That car stopping event was the Jeep mentioned in comments above.
Although I don’t think the Jeep was “rolled” as the original Commenter wrote.
I have uBlock Origin installed in Firefox on my BYD Atto3. Fast ad-free browsing, youtube with out pizza recommendations. Its simply the best…. The BYD entertainment system is android based, which just works !