...think again, as you read your way through this patent application for an "Advertising services architecture " which does all things evil in one convenient package:
- It's spyware: "The other source [to derive advertisement targeting from] may be any number of locally available data including, but not limited to, user document files, user e-mail files, user music files, downloaded podcasts, computer settings, computer status messages (e.g. a low memory status or low printer ink), "
- It's unavoidable: "The advertising manager 312, alone or together in conjunction with the advertising framework 302, may log ad placement results and may even take steps to verify ad consumption by the targeted consumer. "
- It's monopolistic: "For example, an e-mail client may specify that ads from competitors must be excluded, that its own display client must be used,"
- And of course the basic evil is that this is tied right into the OS
This is contemptible at a level where it's almost a human rights issue. Stalin or George Orwell could not have conceived of a more paranoid scheme of control over "targeted customers" - what to the rest of us is known simply as people.
I can't wait for this to be granted and to see which other companies are going to get sued for being as bad as this. The spectacle of someone claiming lots of prior art in the field of total emasculation of unsuspecting consumers is priceless.
Posted by Claus at July 14, 2007 01:43 PM | TrackBack (0)Then maybe if the OS was free there was some sort of tiny possible justification. But this sitting on top of an OS that costs perhaps 300$ is just...scary.
Posted by: Mads on July 15, 2007 1:09 PMI do think this should be seen as developments towards something purely ad-based - in response to software as a service from e.g. Google.
There was a lot of talk about some papers presented to Gates during "think week" about this some time ago.