Pandora’s box is being opened, and this might just be the beginning.
The Department of Justice has ordered Apple and Google to hand over an OBDII app’s user data in a new emissions probe. The culprit? EZ Lynk, which many of you will remember and possibly just twitched upon seeing the name again.
Five years after the DOJ sued EZ Lynk while claiming the company refused to cooperate with an Environmental Protection Agency investigation, the Feds have now subpoenaed Apple and Google for user data for at least 100,000 people that downloaded the EZ Lynk Auto Agent app. The heart of all this is the DOJ accusing EZ Lynk of purposely assisting customers in modifying their vehicles to violate the Clean Air Act. Now user privacy is on the line.
Now it seems lawyers want to interview individuals about how they used EZ Lynk’s products after looking at and linking their user app data. Naturally, consumer rights advocates are loudly wondering why the DOJ would need consumers’ identities, addresses, and even purchase histories. Who’s on trial here and exactly who are the Feds after now?
On the latest episode of The Drivecast we discuss why EZ Lynk is back in the news, what exactly is going on with the DOJ, and more importantly what it means today and possibly tomorrow.
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Full Transcript
Joel: So just to get this out of the way, I do want to apologize. We are a weekly podcast. You are not crazy, we did not have an episode last week. A confluence of events you might or might not believe: I was traveling in Austria and Germany on assignment. Kyle was going to record the podcast and then something about smallpox and fleas and a possible scenario, I don’t really know. Everyone’s fine. 10 plagues. Kyle’s fine. Everyone’s fine.
Anyway, so real talk, we’re back with this whole diesel emissions mess. Now, there is a very vocal contingent online screaming at the government that these required emissions control systems on diesel trucks are unreliable, a huge issue, and we’re going to delete and defeat these things on trucks, et cetera. Is this the case of one of those things where there’s a lot of loud people talking about it but not a ton of people doing it? Is it just a lot of noise?
Caleb: A lot of people have been doing it for years and even more than a decade actually. So since emission systems were put in place on diesel pickup trucks, the aftermarket has been finding ways to remove that. And for years they got by saying that these delete kits were for off-road use only, but that quickly became an issue. In the mid 2010s, late 2010s, we started to see the federal government come after not so much individuals, but definitely shops, tuners, aftermarket companies that either built and manufactured these parts or installed them or provided software. So that’s kind of how we see EZ Lynk wrapped up in this. Not so much that they were ones that were writing tunes that would enable trucks to run without their emission systems, but that they provided a platform that tuners could then misuse to install on their trucks and defeat their emission systems.
That’s the name of the game here. The trying to decide along with the federal government, did EZ Lynk do this on purpose to enable emissions deletes, or did they simply provide a platform that other people have used?
Joel: Fair enough. And before we get into the EZ Lynk and the news and everything, there are countless ways to do this. EZ Lynk is a way and that is the news we’re going to talk about today and it opens this whole Pandora’s box here. But it’s not just EZ Lynk. There are multiple ways you could do a diesel delete system on your truck, right?
Caleb: Yeah. I mean, it’s essentially just what method you take to reflash your ECU after you’ve removed diesel particulate filter exhaust gas recirculation system. EZ Lynk was just an incredibly popular route that people would take. I mean, you can look back on the past probably six years of my writing career and see just how frequently this has come up in the news, just how big of a target it had become for the federal government. And what I think is interesting now to see is that the Feds, especially through the EPA, they’re now focused on deregulation. They’ve really put a lot of this stuff aside, and yet we still see the DOJ going after EZ Lynk. And really right now, this kind of transitions the conversation to be one that’s about privacy and data concerns, even more so than it is environmental.
Joel: It’s just crazy to even hear the words data privacy concerns and all that stuff when it talks about just deleting the emissions equipment on my pickup truck. But hey, cars are connected now, right? So how do we get here? Give us a back context.
Caleb: Yeah, sure. So EZ Lynk is a name that people may or may not be familiar with. If you’ve been involved with diesel trucks, there’s a good chance that you’ve heard of them. What started all of this was in 2021, the DOJ actually sued EZ Lynk essentially on behalf of the EPA saying that they provided a way for customers to circumvent the emission systems on their truck, allowing it to pollute more noxious gas, roll black smoke, what so many people associate it with. That was in 2021, so it was five years ago at this point. For a while they went back and forth. This was in the news, I remember reporting it back then. What we saw eventually happen was that the courts ruled in EZ Lynk’s favor under what’s called Section 230. And so what that does is provide protection for a platform that others use and misuse, essentially just absolves them from responsibility saying, “Hey, just because you provided the platform doesn’t mean you were actively involved in the illegal activity that took place on it.”
That was then overturned, that protection under Section 230, it was overturned in 2025. An appellate court said that actually this does not count under Section 230. And just to maybe give a little bit of context, a little bit of reference, Section 230 is what protects companies like Facebook and Instagram from being legally punished for illegal activity that takes place on those platforms. So it’s kind of the same thing here. So that’s why you can’t refer to EZ Lynk as a diesel tuner because really they manufacture an OBD2 tool that people then use to flash software, clear codes, things like that. So it’s marketed to the masses as a way to check the OBD2 port on your car or truck. Fleets can use it to keep track of electronic logging devices if you have a big commercial fleet. So it would not be accurate to call EZ Lynk itself a diesel tuner, but diesel tuners most certainly have used EZ Lynk for these purposes for well over a decade.
And it’s easy to find that online. There’s nothing arbitrary about me saying that. You can go online, you can search EZ Lynk diesel tuner. I found posts about it on Facebook as recently as two weeks ago and now that’s much more of a hush-hush conversation, but it’s still happening out loud in certain places. So much of that has been because of the deregulation and the relaxed emphasis on criminal charges against people that tamper with OBD2 ports with the EPA. So that’s kind of the backstory here.
Joel: Hang on. There’s a lot of interesting things about what you said. Everything you say is interesting, Caleb. But on particular thing you just said is that yes, the reason we’re talking about this is it’s being used as a diesel defeat device to defeat emissions, regulations, tools, and infrastructure in the trucks. But the reality is this is a scan tool. This is a device that, like you said, you clear codes, you got code in your car. It’s like, is it my cat? Is it a spark plug? What is the issue? And people are using it for a particular issue or a particular use case here. It’s not a nefarious device that’s being sold. There’s countless versions of these kinds of devices you can go buy at AutoZone or Riley’s, Advanced Auto Parts, whatever Amazon. Now not all of them probably can do this diesel defeat situation, I would assume. Was that accurate, Caleb?
Caleb: Yeah. And whether or not you consider EZ Lynk Auto Agent nefarious, it depends on what you believe EZ Lynk’s involvement to be in this diesel aftermarket community. So if you go on their website, you wouldn’t find any reference to using this to tune diesel trucks. That is very clear. They also have several disclaimers that say whatever the third party, whatever software they use, whatever they put on this device, that’s their thing. It’s not our thing. So yeah, there’s a lot of controversy as to how aware was EZ Lynk that this was happening. I think a lot of people are in favor of saying, yeah, they were aware and they continue to make that accessible to people. But what we have here now is the Department of Justice sending subpoenas to companies like Apple and Google to get user information at least 100,000 users. We don’t have a solid number, but it’s at least that many and likely more.
And what they’re essentially trying to do is learn the use cases for each of these people that have downloaded the EZ Lynk Auto Agent app on their phones, whether that be through the app store for Apple or through Google Play Store. And this is where you have consumer privacy advocates swarming on this. So just as much as this is an issue of environmental, really right now, that’s what we see happening and much of it was detailed in a Forbes report that came out here just in the past recent few days that talked about more than 100,000 people could have their data surrendered to the Department of Justice. And the Department of Justice says, “Well, you signed the terms and conditions, you’ve pretty much waived your rights to maintaining that privacy.” And people have a lot to say about that and reasonably so, I think.
Joel: Why is this back in the news now? Because again, this all started five years ago. Why all of a sudden did we just have a new report on this?
Caleb: Yeah. Well, with the appellate court overturn of the Section 230 protection in 2025 and then now we have these subpoenas being sent out, that is really what has drawn the attention of tech outlets in the media. Whenever we talk about consumer data, this goes all the way down to addresses and purchase history. So it’s not just top level.
They are requesting very specific data that many people would not want to share, especially for no good reason with the government. So a lot of that was uncovered in this Forbes report that was just recently published. And so that’s why it’s a hot topic right now. I think you’re going to see a lot more of it, not just in automotive spaces, but in tech outlets everywhere.
Joel: Obviously we talked a little about, you said it’s about 100,000 people and that’s only the number we know who really knows the true extent of this, of course, right? Do you think this is going to spread? We’ve seen a lot of Section 230 claims obviously around Facebook and Instagram and teen imaging and privacy laws and moderation. Do you see for the automotive community and what we’re seeing right here, do you see this spreading and we’re about to open Pandora’s box or is this going to be kind of contained to what we’re seeing now?
Caleb: That’s a good question. So in this Forbes report, which I will continue to reference, they’ve done a great job on giving context and providing information that’s important to know. The scale of this is approximately 10 times larger than another recent noteworthy Section 230 probe where the government requested to see the consumer data for people who had downloaded a Gunscope app. I believe that was in 2019. So we’ve seen already that this can be escalated. There stands to be every possibility that this could escalate even further. That’s why I think the real danger is in this.
Again, it’s not necessarily providing protections for people who have broken the law, but it’s keeping people’s data private who did not use this in any nefarious way, like just normal people that aren’t clued into what happens in some niche corner of the automotive aftermarket using a device to keep track of how often their fleet drivers are on the road for what periods of time or being able to clear a code after they’ve replaced an oxygen sensor on their car at home. That’s where I think the real danger is in this, and that’s why you see so many people paying close attention to it now that have not covered the EZ Lynk saga to this point.
Joel: Fair enough. So the last time this happened actually, Joe Biden was in the White House as president and now we have Donald Trump in the White House. Of course, does it matter? But the reason I ask that is because, I mean, as you’ve reported and we at The Drive reported, President Trump’s gutted the EPA, he’s pulled back on electrification, he’s pushed and stripped away climate change data while whitewashing the concept on multiple levels. But this almost feels like he’s going against everything else that we’ve now reported on. Why is this happening and why now? Or do you think it’s one of those things that like some lower level appellate court, like you said, and the Trump administration are just not even involved, even though it’s the federal government
Caleb: It is surprising to see. We have talked about this pretty extensively, the online discourse, especially in the diesel truck community over the past few years. Whenever Trump was inaugurated pretty soon after that, I published a story. I think the headline was something like, diesel tuners can’t wait for Trump’s EPA to leave them alone, but hold on just a minute. And the reason that I say it like that is because so many of the laws that were already in place remain in place and whether or not they’re being enforced now by bodies like the EPA does not necessarily mean they will not be enforced under future administrations.
And so you have seen what many in the diesel truck community would consider victories for them as the federal government reconsiders rules surrounding diesel exhaust fluid, especially in cold weather states like Alaska and Wyoming. There has been lots of talk about stopping power limitations whenever you run low on diesel exhaust fluid. This becomes a matter of both safety and reliability and it’s a very nuanced conversation because while there is the obvious downside of more emissions, it is true that it poses severe problems for fleets, especially of commercial vehicles whenever their downtime is increased significantly due to faults with the emission system.
You would think that it would at least take a break until whoever comes into office from 2028 on. And so yeah, it’s hard to say. President Trump has shown that he will get involved in scenarios like this. There was a diesel tuner in Wyoming who was put in prison over emissions deletes. Then some of his state government campaigned for a pardon and President Trump pardoned him.
So whether or not we see that happen with EZ Lynk, I mean, that’s jumping the gun anyway as we don’t know exactly what will happen with this case. And there are quite a few differences too between that Trump part and what we’re talking about here between the DOJ and EZ Lynk. But still, it just shows that President Trump is willing to get involved in cases like this that maybe seem like small potatoes to some, but actually are pretty significant, especially as you talk about the precedent it might set for other companies like Facebook and Instagram. Obviously that would be a much, much, much, much larger scale than this. And I hesitate to say that there will be knock-on effects for those two depending on how this goes, but again, it could happen.
Joel: Do you really see this cascading in that regard, or too early to tell?
Caleb: I would say that it’s too early to tell, but I would say that it’s a valid concern. I think that anybody who knows what they’re talking about would say that whatever happens with this case could very well spread. Deleting a diesel truck submission systems is not as simple as taking a hack saw to a DPF. There is more to it than that. It requires not only software tuning, but you have to make sure that everything is set up to run properly without that. It’s not something that you’re just going to do in your driveway without any specialized tools. And so I do think that this, like I said, maybe sets the precedent for the other tools that people have used in the past without getting into any specifics. Yeah, it’s interesting to see it take this turn because I certainly never expected this to be a data privacy story.
Whenever I saw the Forbes report come up, I was like, “Oh, hold on a second. This is taking a completely different angle from what I reported on the DOJ’s case against EZ Lynk in 2021.” And so now you suddenly have all of these concerns, right? Will the federal government go after end users? That’s fairly new. That’s always been a worry for folks, but the folks that I’ve talked to who have been fined literally millions of dollars both in civil penalties and criminal fines, they were aftermarket providers. They were not just diesel truck owners. Closest thing that we’ve seen to that happen is a guy named Mike Seybold, who I interviewed, he listed a deleted Ram Cummins Power truck on Facebook Marketplace and the state reached out to him and said, “Hey, you better get the emission systems back on that truck.” And it resulted in him crushing it and that was under the Biden administration, but that was at state level.
So we have not seen much outside of that, at least go extremely public in terms of end users, diesel truck owners who have employed these devices to remove their emission systems.
I think that is probably the largest concern for anybody that’s used these devices in the past for that purpose is that they could get a knock at their door depending on how seriously the Feds take this. And again, it’s not just about how they act in the next two, three years, it’s what comes after that. I do think that people are rightfully concerned of what could come of this. And again, I don’t say any of that as to provide protections for people that clearly violate the law or anything like that. I think that it is certainly an imperfect solution requiring diesel exhaust fluid, even as it’s efficient as it is. It’s true. I just interviewed engineers from Ford’s PowerStroke team, from the Cummins team, from the Duramax team. They have all spoken about how much more efficient modern diesel after treatment systems have become and they clean up exhaust tremendously.
I believe they said it’s 90 to 95% they’re able to capture before it exits the tailpipe. So that part is fantastic. But whenever you continually run into reliability problems that result in both more downtime and also lack of transportation for people that use these as personal vehicles and just keep in mind too. I think that it’s easy for folks to make an enemy out of truck owners because they say, oh, they all drive a $90,000 platinum F-250. That’s not always the case, right? Emission systems been around long enough at this point that it could be somebody with a 2010 Duramax-powered Chevy three quarter ton that is super base spec. They use it to haul lawn equipment and now suddenly they’re without their truck because their emission system shut down. So there’s a lot of nuance to this situation for sure and that is not going away anytime soon.
Joel: So if some guy has a truck that’s not a brand new, $90,000 Platinum Ford, is it possible someone could have bought a truck with a deleted or defeated system and they wouldn’t know it? Probably not from a dealership, I would presume, but from a private party it’s possible, yes? Is there some way someone could own a truck and not know their system? Is that not operating correctly?
Caleb: Well, okay, here. So you would not likely do that from a dealer. Most dealers, especially at this point, having seen how the federal government has gone after folks in the last five years, they are not going anywhere near a deleted truck. It depends. I would say one, how educated the truck buyer is and then also how common are deletes in the area where you live? I live in Missouri, lots of good old boys here running straight pipe diesel trucks. And if you think that’s just the way they sound normally, then yeah, I mean, I could see somebody buying something secondhand. It’s definitely not being advertised anymore for sale ads. Used to, you would see that it would say deleted and tuned and that was a selling point for folks until the government started cracking down on that pretty significantly.
So the likelihood that a seller would disclose that, especially with any kind of paper trail, that’s far less likely than it used to be. And again, if you just don’t know, I would say there’s a chance that you could stumble into a truck that has had its emission systems removed. Because if you have somebody like … I could use my grandpa, for instance. If my grandpa said that he needed a work truck and he found one that was a 2012 that had 200,000 miles at this point, he may not know to ask whether or not it’s been straight piped with the DPF removed. He just wouldn’t think about that. There wasn’t a thing for him growing up.
I think there are many different buyers and many different drivers of diesel trucks. So to paint with broad strokes would be kind of dangerous on that front, but never say never. Never say it’s not possible.
Joel: Never say never. Take that advice to the bank, kids.
Caleb: Yeah. I mean, if you got any questions about this or if you have any tips as far as potential stories, maybe things that you’ve seen firsthand, maybe something that you’ve been involved in, I’m sure a lot of you guys have thoughts you’re more than free to email those to us at tips@thedrive.com. That’s our tips line. My email address is caleb@thedrive.com. You can send any of that stuff any of that over to us and we’ll sift through it. But yeah, I mean, at this point, it’s not going away.
