Slashdot Mirror
CNET Patents Banner Advertising Networks
brer_rabbit writes "CNET was just today handed USPTO patent #6,073,241 titled Apparatus and method for tracking world wide web browser requests across distinct domains using persistent client-side state. The patent implies that CNET is able to track a browser across multiple domains for "advertisers to tailor their content to users."" We here at slashdot conducted our usual thorough legal review of the patent ("Hey guys, does this say what I think it says?") and we're agreed: the entire business method of DoubleClick, Matchlogic, 24/7 and other banner advertising networks has been patented. CNet now has a legal monopoly, issued and enforced by the U.S. of A., on banner advertising networks. CNet filed the patent on August 29, 1996; DoubleClick started operations in early 1996.
Yesterday's Dilbert Strip seems highly appropriate to this story.
See this overview of patent law I wrote for Slashdot a while back.
Hope it helps.
Steve
Democracy is a poor substitute for liberty.
Try download.com - try downloads.com - try uploads.com - try freeware.com - try shareware.com
.net and .org -- this totally defeats the purpose of having different TLDs...
It shouldn't be this easy to do this. Every registrar service now, during a default availability search, lets you check boxes while registering to snag wahtever.com,
Regulation? Anyone? Anyone alive at ICANN?
Bold slashdot haiku:
Overused, stale, and cliched.
Please try something else.
DNA just wants to be free...
I have nothing against the site splitting the article and tracking users. If wired.com is supplying me with content, I'm happy to tell wired.com, through my mouse clicks, which wired.com stories I read all the way through. It's already in their server logs. So why do they need Doublefsck?
The only use of the LAYER tag on Wired is to send that information to third parties. Doublefsck isn't telling Wired what I'm reading - Wired's server already knows what I'm reading.
Doublefsck is trying to accumulate a profile that tells them what I read on every site that has doublefsck.com links in LAYER tags. Wired is the one I mention because it's so blatant - I see five or six LAYER tags being loaded in my browser's status bar with every mouse click. Sheesh. But how many other sites do I visit that are using the same technology, but only send one transaction and I've therefore missed? Salon? NY Times? The political parties and special interest groups? nakednatalies.com?
What I read off a site belongs between me and the content provider. Wired can tell I'm interested in MP3s, free speech, and cool hardware. mp3.com knows what kind of music I listen to. Nakednatalies.com knows I'm into hot grit pr0n. The political sites know what kind of a jackass, elephant, or neither I'm likely to vote for in October.
But if all four of those sites use tracking technology, then doublefsck knows all about my hobbies, my sexual tastes, and my politics.
I have a major problem with that.
Why should doublefsck know that I'm the type of guy who likes to watch elephants and jackasses mating on TV while pouring hot grits down Natalie Portman's pants while the Cocky Sticks play "I'm a Catholic Girl, of course I swallow!" in the background?
> when I see the URL points to some tracking cgi I say forget it. I want to know where I'm going to be sent before I click on something - and doubleclick is not a place I want to visit!
I think we're in complete agreement here. It's just that Doublefsck is sneaking a slimy tentacle into more than just banner ads through use of the LAYER tags and other invasive technologies.
I think we need a voice of reason here - we're instantly assuming that since companies like Amazon abuse their patents, CNET will do the same. Before hyping this up any further, how about contacting CNET ASAP and asking if they will either A) hold the patent defensively and not use it as basis for a suit against any other comapnies (except maybe doubleclick, they deserve it =), or B) release the patent into the public domain.
Wile the USPTO may be out of control, we're not helping any by ranting and raving here If CNET won't agree not to use the patent offensively unless otherwise provoked, THEN we can start worrying/complaining/DDoSing =)
On a side note, recall that Microsoft has a patent on the scrollbar, and IBM has a patent on pressing a "more" button - while M$ may be an "evil" company, you don't see them threatening gnome (yet). Most likely CNET will hold this patent defensively, since, judging by the USPTO's recent actions, if CNET wasn't awarded with it, someone else likely would be - and it's a good thing that's not doubleclick.
On the other hand, a web without any ads would be interesting - and I wonder what would happen to journalistic integrety without those monetary incentives. Unfortunately, that would also stifle innovativion and make many truly good sites - like slashdot - unfeasible to maintain.
-- Imagine how much more advanced our technology would be if we had eight fingers per hand.
...that are worse than banners.
.GIFs.
/etc/hosts on a UNIX box, as this is basically the *opposite* of what /etc/hosts was designed for. But it's a damn effective solution on Windoze.)
For instance, I can surf with images off if I don't have a proxy handy, and avoid the animated
But there are other ways to track you that don't require banner ads. Look at all the layer tags:
<LAYER SRC="http://ln.doubleclick.net"></LAYER>
...in stories on http://www.wired.com lately.
Worse yet - because many news sites break up their stories into two or three "pages", the Doublecross.coms of the world don't just know *what* you read, but how *fast* you read it, and whether you read just the first page and throw it away as "uninteresting" or the followup pages of the article.
*THAT*'s the value of breaking news articles up into dozens of 2-paragraph pieces, by the way. The extra banner impressions aren't worth it, but the tracking information you get as to which users read which stories all the way through is worth its weight in gold.
What we need is a HOWto on route. One per platform, covering all the idiosyncrasies. Don't write it for sysadmins, write it for everyone, like the guy who just installed DeadRat and has a root prompt.
We need to make this:
# route add -host ln.doubleclick.net 127.0.0.1 -blackhole
...a part of our setups, and we need it to scale up to all the tracking sites. (I'd guess at least 1000, maybe 2000 hosts at present.)
We need to tell our users what to put in what files, and how to extend it to the rest of their network, and how to make it *stick* no matter how many times DNS tries to bring it back from the dead. (Fscking Slowaris fscking fsck fsck fsck! I should *NOT* have to run that route command more than once per bootup!)
Windoze users have the ability of creating a huge HOSTS file in their system directory. It's a one-step thing. Trivial.
A quickie HOWTO on how to do the same thing, for all the various Unices, would be a welcome addition. (It's kinda an ugly fix to do this in
From the patent:
The next processing step shown in FIG. 2 is to set a cookie corresponding to the unique identification value and return a page of the requested information (step 82). In general, the setting of a cookie (persistent client-side state information) is a known process. However, in accordance with the invention, the returned page includes instructions to convey the unique identification information to additional server computers that are observing the same protocol.
The purpose of this patent is to work around the necessity of hosting banner ads on a central server and then passing those banners out to member servers. Instead, you host the banner on your own site, and then using this method people who browse the ads are forced to report themselves back to the central server.
Advantages:
1) ad company doesn't have to host banner GIFs - less expense for them
2) faster response times for the user due to fewer connections
3) works around junkbuster-type filters that forbid ads from certain domains or that do not render images from off-site
This is clearly not the double-click method at all. I wish that the slashdot editors would actually read the patent before posting it, let alone trashing it publicly to tens of thousands of people who hang on their every word.
-konstant
Yes! We are all individuals! I'm not!
-konstant
Yes! We are all individuals! I'm not!
Quick, somebody patent spam, and then file a big class action suit against all spammers.
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.