I'll guess they timed the announcement, to contrast with GM paying out 9 figures for selling consumer data - https://arstechnica.com/cars/2026/10/gm-to-pay-220-million-a...

It'd be lovely if other automakers followed suit, but I wouldn't actually bet on Ford keeping its Promise.

A 9-digit payout is a lot of incentive. I imagine the pennies they get from selling your data surreptitiously just is not worth the hassle. It costs way less than $220M to write up a privacy policy and provide working toggles in the user interface. And they may even generate goodwill.