Exactly. Which one of us consumers asked FoMoCo, our government or any product provider to track us? It’s all relative to the topic IMO. No one is asking for this. It’s all being done to us for their benefit.
Edit Our data is extremely beneficial to the market and those with an agenda. Whether the target be our wallets or our freedom or both.

 

One viewpoint is simply, "Get over it." Just about every device you own, most apps, and all social media are already tracking you and selling your information to data brokers. All that free Internet stuff you use isn't free - you are the product. So if you get all worked up about what data Ford is collecting, you need to be equally upset with Facebook, Google, Chrome, Gmail, Twitter/X, Youtube, LinkedIn, Tik Toc, Instagram, other vehicle manufacturers, etc., etc. Even connected farm equipment. So it's kind of useless to "protect" yourself from Ford because you are tracked almost everywhere anyway.

 

So your solution is to just bend over and take it? Just give in and let anyone peer into your private life?

There are A LOT of things one can do to prevent a huge chunk of data mining. Yes, some things will get through, but the more you stop or prevent, the better. Some of us are very careful as to what online companies we use, and what we put online.
Just as I unplugged the TCU in my truck, I limit as much as I can. I use a VPN online, I use fake names, birthdays, emails, locations, and phone numbers when it’s not important too

 

key strokes, how about the key strokes google keeps track of? or exactly what your location is at what time of day, warm weather is here, i'm parking my 23 for a 1970 ride

 

tracked every where is 100% right, heck even when i take the charter boat out big uncle knows where we are .how fast we ran, as we are forced to have transponders like planes have now, they want to limit us to speeds of 10 knots , sure run a planning boat at 10 knots. use 3 times the fuel it's twin C18a's would use on plane ver how much it uses plowing 50 tons though the water,
social media, screw it, google i wish i could loose, send a photo to someone via gmail, it's world wide in seconds,

 

Ditch those fancy new trucks and join us Red Necks in the BULL NOSE forum
And always remember to buy your ammo with cash....Big Bro is always watching...

 

The "just deal with it" mindset are the ones who would turn their neighbors in if we were communist.

 

One of the best looking trucks! I missed it by a couple years, as I had a couple of '88's...

 

Or in the Slicks and Dentside forums!! My "newest" truck is an '02 F350, well, other than my work truck a 22 F550 XL, not sure what all nannies and trackers it has on it... I almost bought a new Bronco, but the idiot salesman sent my order out for an auto instead of a manual... blessing in disguise I suppose.
I enjoy my old trucks and the simplicity of them, and the fact they're all paid for well, except for the Napa payments!

 

You all are worried about your trucks but everything else you do is being tracked too. Use your Credit card or any loyalty card? Even the bank knows when you are removing cash and there isn't a store today that doesn't have a camera.

 

Moving back to the topic at hand, assuming you trust Ford, or any company for that matter, you need to read through the privacy policy. It was surprisingly straightforward. It explains what they do with your data.

In the connectivity screen you have options to turn off various sharing items, and I suggest you go through and review those. Turn off what you’re not comfortable with. It will pop up and tell you what might not work after you do it. You can always turn it back on, so try it and see if you’re missing anything. For example, there’s absolutely no reason I can discern why Ford should know what I listen to. I turned that off right away. Other things like location? Well that can affect whether you can find your truck in the app. Again, it comes down to whether you want to use that feature or not.

I use CarPlay/Apple for navigation, so I don’t have a lot of the navigation stuff turned on. But it’s also nice to have a backup, so I haven’t turned it off completely yet. Hello ford or whatever it is, yep that’s off.

Go through and see what you want on or off. If there’s nothing there you want, turn it all off.


I have some equipment to test whether it’s really off, but I don’t know how to use it just yet. It won’t give me any insight as to what is actually being transmitted, but if the modem doesn’t actually turn off, it would alert me to that. I’ll be learning more about it this year and I’ll share what I figure out.

You can also go ahead and take the other option and unplug as some have suggested.

 

I got a fancy new Rand McNally slipped in the pocket behind the passenger seat, But my first choice is the Car Play for nav, that's what I'm comfortable with.
I think what really gets me about this whole data spying thing is two fold, one is the real time telemetry that they're capable of sending to whom ever or whatever agency. The other is what those agencies do with that data, in one of the stories I read the guy got his insurance premiums raised because they (insurance co.) had the data to show that he was a bit of a lead foot.
The phone and other data collecting devices don't get your insurance premiums raised but this spyware from Ford, or any other manufacturer sure does.

 

You really think asking them not to track will actually work? Not a chance.

 

I’m with you. I have testing equipment to try to monitor it, but idk how to use it yet. I’ll get there.

But, if you want certain features and not others, you don’t really have much of an option beyond trusting them. unplugging it is nuclear, in that it’s all or nothing.

 

Agree. I had a blue & white 1986 with a 302 similar to the truck pictured in your post.
As for the topic at hand, how much information is stored in truck modules that we don't know about? For instance, can law enforcement or anyone else access data from the truck after a crash via the OBD port or some other connectivity? I'm guessing there's all kinds of information kept on these trucks that we don't know about that can be culled in ways we never heard of. There's probably no way around that.

​​​​​​I asked in another thread if some plugs could remain connected while others might be pulled to retain some functions but defeat others. I could find nothing about which plugs on the modem control which functions in online searches. Last I checked none of our members has responded to the same question posed here. So you're right. I guess for the truck do have at least some of the functions I'd use I leave it alone.