Since EVs are like smartphone on wheels, it's not surprising that companies might explore monetizing these large screens through ads.
It's not surprising that companies would want to. What's surprising to me is how readily the public has rolled over for it . . . which, in turn, has made it so easy for the government to get by with ineffective responses such as "do not call" lists that have no enforcement teeth.
A few years ago our landline became so deluged with spam calls that I began keeping a log and found we were getting between 20-30 spam calls a day. Interestingly, the times were predominantly daytime hours. I thought that odd until I realized those are the hours where a higher percentage of homes are occupied by older retirees who are easier prey for phone scams.
I wanted to cancel the landline but could not because our home elevator requires an emergency phone line that cannot be a cellphone line. So I turned the ringer off on all the phones and deactivated voicemail so that I did not have to hear constant telephone ringing all day and could use the line only for outgoing calls. At the time, I was getting almost no spam calls on my cell line. However, that changed before long and, even using robocall blocking, I now get several spam calls a day on my cell line.
It is hard to live modern life without a phone for safety and other reasons. To have advertisers be allowed for their own purposes to hijack phone service for which I pay is infuriating, as is the passivity with which most people shrug it off.
One of the most insidious elements of this Ford patent is this:
"The patent, basically, says that it will use a few different algorithms to bypass occupants’ preference for zero ads by playing ads at certain times, attempting to minimize disruption by understanding the context."
In other words, even if the car occupants take steps to block ads, Ford is suggesting methods to force its way through that resistance and force as many ads on the car's occupants as they can. To me, this is little short of assault.
