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Google Patent for User Targeted Search Results
lorenbake writes "Scoble is one of many to report that Google has filed a patent for user targeted, or attention targeted, search results which will change the ranking of Google's organic results per each individual user based upon that user's search behavior, location, sites visited, and even 'typing behavior'. How could Google build such user profiles to serve customized organic (non-paid) results to? Tracking via their network of desktop apps, advertising, Gmail, and other network services."
Do no evil. Unless you have shareholders?
~S
2084. Google will rule the government. Wherever you look, everything you see will be tailored to what you want to see. Screw normal advertising, you'll be seeing "Google AdSense billboards" which display roadside alerts and stuff based on whatever you're thinking. Google is the new thought police...
Creative misinterpretation is your friend.
I'm sure you two will get along.
The main reason any big company patents anything is so they can violate the patents of other companies.
"What's that, Microsoft? We're violating your patent #314159265? Well you're violating our patent number #299792458. Lets call it even, shall we?"
It's about (= 'Google 'good), but also about (= 'patents 'evil), what to do, what to THINK!!!
Exciting times we live in... Yahoo and MSN must prevail!
--------- Cheng Ee well well
everyones jumping on the organic bandwagon... wonder when we'll see low carb google
Not bad.. I could imagine that MSN would like that patent as well, and so would yahoo I suppose. Will probably bring in a lot of money for google.
:p Starting with the user.
Google is trying to take over the world
Since filing a patent is evil, Google has violated its "do no evil" policy. Google does like most other companies do immoral things when it benefits the stock holders. Now that we know that, can we please not get a stupid Google story in Slashdot every day? It is tiresome and the company is just as evil as all other companies.
Before this goes all big brother...
I just want to say that I hove no problem with targeted advertising at all. If there is a way that does not impose on my personal freedoms to selectiviely show me things that I might be interested in purchasing it is not only ok but much preffered to the massive spamvertisement campaigns that go on now.
-- The morphemes of your disquisition are ascertainable, but they have eschewed an ambit of transpicuous exposition.
It is about a stupid patent and is therefor evil. F google when they pull this crap.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
All I want...is the ability to easily opt out.
Don't allow cookies accross sessions, dispose of your personalities and change your gmail accounts regularly, use only GPG 4096-byte encrypted text in your gmail account, put on your tinfoil hat when thinking anything at all and - you'll still be within the System, tracked and numbered.
Those guys at $oogle are making Microsoft look like amateurs when it comes to world domination!
The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
You're back again today.
... includes yours.
Oh, was that my outside voice?
My Gmail account is my "send everything here" account. It gets spam from every where from tin foil hat sites to live journal. If you can find a way to work out what I like from "Person X has replied to your comment with 'lol, I agree' " then that's fine by me.
I like muppets.
Let's face it, the only economic reason for a company to build and host a bunch of unrelated applications is to link together advertising and user profiles. Why else would a search engine be talking about providing free WiFi service? So they can track users' locations and deliver location-targeted ads.
---- "If we have to go on with these damned quantum jumps, then I'm sorry that I ever got involved" - Erwin Schrodinger
Where computers and systems know what you want and then give it to you. Good? Evil? Well that all depends on intent doesn't it.
Deleted
NO! the abuse of ptents is evil, and Google has yet to do this, they are just defending themselves in the arms race against ass-hats like Bezose and Gates, who patented the single and double clicks respectively, and other such loonicy. Google has yet to cross thhe line, untill they do, I will respect them -- HELL, if they havent abused teir power by now, why would they start?
On some seaches you perform you see a "personalized results (BETA)" message. I didn't really have a chance to determine whether the results are better, other than that it ranks the sites you visited before higher.
Perhaps they are filing the patent to prevent other companies from filing a similar patent and then using it against Google? Google has already started down the road of targetted ads for their users and storing everything they can about the user's search habits.
For example, if you sign up for a personalized google page, they'll start tracking your searchs, and they will even let you go back and look at the searches that you made weeks ago.
I personally like this kind of stuff. It's useful to me if I forgot to bookmark a site that I liked, I can go back through my search history and find the site again.
Don't count your messages before they ACK.
All the clues were there: context-sensitive ads in GMail was just an obvious one. If you sign up for an account with Google, you agree to their licensing terms; you do the same when instsalling an operating system from a corporation who shall not be named. If you don't like the idea that Google has access to your email, realize that any other provider has the same privileges; it's just that Google, intelligently (but not necessarily morally defensible), chose to take advantage of them. If you didn't use Google, it would be your ISP or another email provider (unless you have your own server).
TANSTAAFL.
You still have software patents? How unlucky you are! BTW, nothing new. It has been done many times (and long time ago) but in general for a specific domain (music, ...). Google is just introducing targeted search to their own system, which is a bit more global. Now burn the USPTO.
Million Dollar Screenshot
... as all the Google fanboys do mental summersaults to twist reality to fit the conflicting notions that Google can do nothing wrong, and yet web patents are so very, very wrong...
... make the voices stop, please?"
... erk ... ack ... (transmission terminated)"
I can see it now, future headline:
Google CEO Revealed as Beelzebub Prince of Darkness, Mountain View New 7th Circle of Hell
Slashdot comments:
"Well, you know, Satan *is* very misunderstood"
"Gmail still rocks! I don't care if the Google minions sacrifice a kitten every time I check my mail, as long as I have my 100 TB of storage! Whoohoo!"
"I just sold my eternal soul for more relevant search results - but hey, I got a great price on this DVD player! Thanks Asmodeus!"
"My monitor smokes a bit when I do searches now, but hey - I can find out what all my friends have been *really* thinking about me! Hey, this new GoogleBrainCrawler kicks butt! Go Google! But
"Yahoo! made a deal with the ancient Nordic Gods but they're just playing catch up at this point"
"Jeez guys, if it was Microsoft making a deal with Belial then we'd be all over it but just because it's Google, you're all
How is it evil? It could be evil because its very powerful but in the right hands.. it could be good for everyone.
I think a lot of people trust google.. i do.
Okay, here's a tinfoil-wrapped theory for your light enjoyment:
Psychologists have long claimed that advertising affects our psyches (e.g., cartoon shows' cereal and toy ads, the NFL's beer ads...). Google proposes to detect those changes in our psyches, and presumably to reinforce them. This could amount to a self-fulfilling and dangerous feedback-loop... resulting in mental image-burn, if not outright transformation. Before the body-snatching takes hold, I'm writing my congressperson...
Seeing bad movies only encourages them. Watch responsibly
Makes perfect sense for google to track which links i click on - essentially i'm filtering out the type results I don't want, so if the search algorithm can learn from that and produce more relevant results, then great!
Privacy isn't such an issue on this considering Google already has this information on a per user level - this probably doesn't raise any additional privacy concerns.
Drag n' Drop DVD Recommendations
... a motto of "do no evil" with patent applications that use phrases such as "user targeted"? Obviously I am not a customer to be served, but a resource to be "targeted". What next, "identify and neutralize"? "Search and destroy"?
-k
Generally, bash is superior to python in those environments where python is not installed.
Good people do bad things, but bad things don't do good people, so it's bad :)
Its not new, its not non-obvious and they're just using up their goodwill by filing for it.
Google is not necessarily evil for doing taking out a patent. We live in a world of IP and patents. They probably have to do this for protection.
However, if Google starts using this patent to thwart their competition then they'll be making a mockery of their own do-no-evil slogan.
I'm sure I could write a witty comment about how the once noble Google has fallen from grace and sold its soul, rising like a rocket to the grat and smog filled heights of modern corperate decadence, but the storyline has probably been patented by now.
May the Maths Be with you!
What with gmail being copyrighted in the UK, perhaps this is designed to prevent others from frivously patenting google's technology and then suing them in an attempt to get paid off?
If you don't want to support the 767-buying, patent-filing search engine, you could switch to ...
... the search engine that snitches on dissidents to the secret police of totalitarian China!
... the search engine run by a bullying monopoly that has run afoul of anti-trust laws.
... the search engine of another company looking to exploit the patent system.
Suddenly I'm wishing at least one university had held on to its search engine (Stanford had Google and Berkeley Inktomi) before spinning it out to make bucks.
We'll have sweet revenge when the goatse trolls run an innocuous search for their boss and get their "personalized results."
I was just thinking yesterday what a horrible idea that would be and how glad I am that google doesnt do this. I'm so cool.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
The reason we have privacy is because it's none of your F$#@#@ business.
"This is all too hard, we can't argue with them can we?" "Well if we had system where people could choose their own government, and we weren't already run by an ever-more powerful group of companies, but that's impossible."
Just relax this won't hurt a bit.
See, just below your ass are your hind "legs" - now get up on them. I know it's scary, but this is called standing up. It is different from kneeling.
All your major news outlets are liars, your entire administration is a betrayal, your major corporations proudly have no morals or empathy (ie: they are sociopaths). Collecting information about you is to have power over you.
cough, sorry.
Do you think that the heads of any company uses a gmail account? Do you think you could scan and file any of the documents sent accross the internet of any 'important person'?
Are you important? ?
Do you have the phone numbers (etc) of the ten thousand most powerful people in your economy(nation) in a searchable database. Do they have yours?
If you aren't active enough in trying to change all this to have warrented a DHS background check then you aren't using your life very well.
This is not troll, nor is it flame bait.
The control of information is what you are doing right now sitting in the darkened cubby or basement of your lives. Control of information is what this age is about.
Google is getting worse and worse with privacy. From a geek point of view, they got a bunch of cool apps, but from a humanist point of view, I feel google is definately turning over to the dark side.
In a couple of years, we will probably be discussing Google and privacy concerns just like we discuss Microsoft and security concerns now.
The more power you have the more temptation there is to abuse that power.
AFAIK, "Do No Evil" is an informal slogan around Google. Google would go a long way to alleviating concern if they added that to their corporate mission statement and bylaws.
The current leadership of Google may be committed to "doing no evil" but leadership changes and leaders can become corrupt.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Steps:
1. Make patent "Violation of other patents."
2. Bribe patent office to be accepted.
3. Google/Microsoft/etc/etc violates a patent.
4. Sue them.
5. ???
6. PROFIT!
If you don't like it, then don't use it!
aka Stop using Google!!.
It's been so long since I've used a rival search engine/site that I don't even know who the second best one is. I do remember that many of them also returned google search results along with their own. I don't imagine that Google will be able to profile other search sites the way it does individual users because so many users will create near randomness. So maybe those results will become better than results acquired directly from Google.
If one doesn't know the respective significances of 314159265 and 299792458, said "one" is not meant for Slashdot.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
This is actually very clever. It's just a ploy by Google themselves to shake out all the hypocrites and fanboys. It's like that stuff the FBI use to show up semen at a crime scene.
My slashdot policy book must be out of date. Didn't we all agree software patents were evil?
it is kinda covered by a previous amazon patent, besides displaying an ad on a visitors behaviour exists for a long time:
....
.... e.g. you can distingush grandma typing 1 letter per 5 seconds, while mr 10-finger-typer geek can type 5+ letters in a sec :) hmm ... strange idea .... ..... cool idea:) never thought of that ....
:)
....
e.g.
My visitor is looking at portable mp3 audio players for the last 5 visits, you want to display an ipod commercial instead of a hairdryer.
When that user searches for "moby audio tracks" you will present results ranked higher for places that sell mp3 other than LPs.
Respect to google, but I think it is also a common knowledge patent. I mean what I mentioned is an afternoon of SQL query tuning that I do not want to compare to millions of results organized by google, but at the end that patent seems to cover a bunch of similar practices that fall under the
"search result ordering based on user behaviour"
the typing issue is a good idea though
I guess it also includes typo watch, misspell watch and similar
now google will start displaying ads about "quit drinking" or "hangover pills" when compared to my normal daily typing I start typing terribly on a late Saturday night ? ARE YOU DRUNK ?
now google just needs to start putting a HAL-like glowing red eye and microphones into our rooms, an anal implant and urine and stool analyzer to provide perfect results
off topic:
I mentioned it already , but interestingly the more and more google refines it's algo, the more and more I find myself using other search engines, as some of the things I am searching for provide less and less usable information for me...
for tech stuff google is unbeatable, however shopping/comparing and travel, I turn to yahoo more and more nowadays.....
..
DUN DUN DUNNNNN!
These are actions Google has actually taken:
x ?NewsId=14130)
)
Helped Chinese authorities to censor their subjects' Internet access.
(http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/News/Details.asp
Selectively approved and refused ads, based on political content.
(http://www.unknownnews.net/google.html)
(http://www.thenation.com/doc/20040830/reilly)
Permanently collected search history for everyone who has ever used their site.
(http://www.google.com/intl/en/privacypolicy.html
(http://www.techweb.com/wire/ebiz/161500535)
Permanently collected/indexed the email history and content of all gmail users, for marketing and law-enforcement use.
(http://mail.google.com/mail/help/privacy.html)
Filed obvious software patents.
(Refer to this slashdot story.)
For me, when people's actions directly contradict their words, I reduce my trust in them accordingly. Google can keep claiming to "do no evil," but the words are becoming more and more empty.
"How is it evil? It could be evil because its very powerful but in the right hands.. it could be good for everyone."
There's a simple way to tell if someone is likely to abuse power. When someone collects power over you, and states that it's for a purpose which doesn't require that power, you are being misled.
Do no evil. Unless you have shareholders?
... *sigh*
This is not funny, it's the ugly TRUTH!
This story ---> Google duo splash out for airliner reminds me of a story I read in a magazine a couple of years ago. It was an inteview with larry or sergey or maybe both (don't remember now), btw, one of them said that everything is so simple @ google, to the extent that if someday somebody buys a BMW the he/she might lose his/her job! Looks like money has the power to change many things
I think this patent is for their on going Personalized Search Beta technology you can enable or disable it is YOUR choice.
Personalized Search Help
This has been driving me nuts for some time now.
Often, when trying to find some information at work, I'll try a Google search, and
make a note of the search terms in order to continue working at home. Then when I go
home and type in the same set of keywords, I'll get a completely different set of
search results, with the articles I was reading now missing.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
I have absolutely no problem with this. I really don't care how detailed they want to get in their information gathering. After all, I'm one in a few billion people, what are the chances that any of my 'private' information would ever be surfaced in any way.
I don't see this as an invasion of privacy. I see it as a business filling the need of a customer, one who wants to find the exact information they're looking for, and instantly.
My tech blog
Personally, I have no problem with my life being made easier by Google. They provide great services in all aspects, and listen to user input. If they get my input with no additional effort from me, that's even better. I'll volunteer any information they want, since I know it will be better for me and for them.
While I do not entirely agree with software patents, I do generally agree with Google--particularly in this case. This is the kind of thing they are really good at, and they deserve the right to the patent. It's not like the encourage all their employees to file for 5 patents per month or whatever Microsoft does.
This may be a disaster for Person X trying to communicate to Person Y how to search for a particular topic. The terms that yield good results for X may receive hidden help from X's personal context, which is totally murky and can't be readily communicated to Y, let alone typed in the search box...
As a simplified example, consider how the agriculture professor and a freshman student may end up with wildly divergent search results for "Onion"...
Funny? Insightful!
:)
We want information at the tips of our fingers, and Google provides it.
This is like those questions where the answer isn't black and white. If I make a website with the (public) info of abortion doctors in my town. Then what if I put directions from the church to their houses using google maps? What if I mark all the pawn shops and gun shows on the way? When is it too much?
What if I put YOUR information on there? What if you put mine? I believe these questions have not hit the courts yet, and my professor asks them as open ended questions to the class.
Things are changing fast, what is privacy? How much do we want in our society? We want to fight terrorism and we want to hold the government accountable so it doesn't become a terrorist police state.
Wish I knew the answers
One of the quotes on my personalized Google home page is not really relevant but I thought it was interesting:
Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. -Leo Tolstoy
"how can they call it a MINE if everything here is THEIRS?!?!" -Straight Jacket
Patents can be a good thing in the right hands. If google allows anyone to use the technology it could be a good thing, because if they control it companies like Microsoft can't charge us for it. Google could get the patent, use it against microsoft, but allow open source not for profit groups to do with the technology as they please.
Haste makes waste. (or waist if at the dinner table)
PADME: So this is how liberty dies, to the sound of thunderous applause.
Well done Google... another patent... another cool app... but then all in all it's just another brick in the wall.
Be nice, sponsor me: http://jailbreak.ragabonds.org.uk
Lobbying for software patents: Bad.
Applying for software patents: Sometimes necessary today, but shouldn't be.
Bragging about granted software patents: Impresses stock market, pisses me off.
Using patents offensively: Bad.
Using patents only defensively: Ok.
We'll see what Google does...
So if you type one handed, all the the results are porn? ;)
When comparing strings, you should use eq?, not =.
News for merdes. Shit that matters.
Ask me about my sig.
Just wait until the FBI hands out an NSL for your "user targeted" search results...
To thwart world domination, use your browser to block everything except session cookies from Google. This will allow you to keep using Gmail and your Gmail Notifier Firefox extension, etc. while keeping Google from tracking you across the Internet./p.
User Targeted Search Results patent you!!!
All I want... is the ability to easily opt in.
The thing that bugs me is it seems impossible to find out exactly what information Google has tied to me. Do they offer any way for me to request to see such info? I would assume not, they would likely make the argument that if they allowed that there could be misuses by people claiming to be someone they are not attempting to gopher information, but it still bothers me that there is no way to find out.
So when I google myself I'll look really popular on the web!
I've always wanted a search feature in my "Stumble to" account
stumble! has a decent enough database of me, matched up to a decent enough database of other users so that websites I visit through it are entirely relevant to me, however they are also *limited* to the select group of current interests, not really allowing for any drastic changes of interests, and indeed funnelling you only into areas that are already relevant to you.
Google may be able to address this using this system (or alternatively it may further limit peoples ability to see other peoples ideas by accident)
Rich Gentlemen Hide - The Existential Comic
You think they're that stupid? They can corelate your queries via your IP address, or the frequency of words or topics you commonly search for.
The Microsoft and Yahoo corporate fanboys do mental magic tricks in order to prove that doing something MSN and Yahoo would be doing eventually in order to protect their business is negative. Think of it this way: If the patent is approved, for 19 years Microsoft wont be able to use your information to deliver content of any type to you. Sounds like a sweet deal to me.
Way to overreact guys, I bet you're all now thinking that Microsoft would never do something like this? Oh...
NOOOOOOOOOOO !!!
Yes, if you keep clicking on the links from blog to blog, you will find the actual patent links.
/. readers on a wlid goose chase.
It would be helpful if submitters included such links directly rather than sending all the interested
I hate call waitin`~+~~~
NO CARRIER
How about creating two mozilla profiles - in the first profile, block google cookies (gookies? sounds unappetizing), but allow them in a second profile. Check gmail only from the second profile. That is the only google service I use which requires cookies.
That way, they cannot tie your searches to an ID through the use of cookies. If they still circumvent this through some combination of IP address + user-agent, then you know what their long term intentions are.
I had a couple mod points, but I think a couple simple analogies will better explain that the behavior exhibited by google, and refered to in this patent, will clearly fall under your definition of "reasonable".
You walk into a library in Mountain View, CA and talk to a librarian. You ask her to help you find some stuff about rosa parks. And PS, this librarian is hot, you talk to her all day every day. She recognizes you and gets to know you as time goes on. And you sometimes give her mail to send, which she makes clear that she will read to get a better understanding of you. And she sometimes tells you when she thinks you'll be interested in one of her sponsors. She is also kind enough to completely forget who you are if you ask her. Oh, and she gives great head.
Another day you walk into a store in New York, NY (doubleclick.net). You find there a man who somehow knows most of the books the hot librarian in Mountain View told you about. He also knows your credit card number and your mother's maiden name. He stabs you and takes you wallet, fleeing the scene.
Hope that clears it up.
P.S. Google search history now allows you to "star" visited pages and add "tags" to them, exactly like delicious. Only thing is, you can use multiple word tags.
-- I was raised on the command line, bitch
Customer privacy = A
Google profits =B
simple subtract A from B
$$Profit
Disclaimer "Google Shareholder"
From this, I deduce that grandparent likes geeky websites, lesbian porn, and cheese streudel.
:)
What do I win?
Reasons you might patent:
Well, as a Canadian whenever I hit the google site I'm redirected to the google.ca site. When I was in Australia on holidays I believe it was google.com.au
Now my brain may be fuzzy, but I believe that various searches would tailor items for the area... try it.
You'll notice that the advertising banners are different. For me it came up with a banner for woolworth's. Throw a little more info in there and perhaps in the future it would be grabbing stores based on proximity, such as displaying city local results first, then regional, state/province, and national/intercontinental. It's not part of the main search results but such an idea still has relevence.
Personally, such usage isn't a big deal to me. The only think I worry about is that when I'm studying a topic on perhaps a song or whatever and google caches that as my search, then somebody requests said info when trying to nail me for music piracy (which I bother with anyways, but I'm sure there might be something similar).
Bullshit. I don't know about WiFi but I know plenty of reasons to do targetted searches. One is similar to advertising, but it would be to deliver targetted results based on locations. If you're looking for a particular product, perhaps local merchants would show up first (something that should be opt-outable).
By other uses for tracking, there are plenty. I was on vacation in Seattle recently and searching up various locations and/or sites. Quite often I would get mixed results from similarly named items in different places. Now if it had tracked me down as in a Seattle hotel, it could have said 'hey, this guy is in Seattle, let's give him Seattle-relevant results first'
Other times, I'll be looking up local laws or case files (I had a civil injury case going for awhile). Most of my results were US.... but if google got better at tailoring them to my country/region it would have been much more helpful. Again, it might be a good option to be disabled, but tailoring results (or results order) to give precedence by area is not useful just for advertising.
Seriously, have you ever met someone in a position of power? Human beings are natually greedy, impatient, vicious, etc... A corporation's supreme, main purpose and ultimate goal is to make as much money as humanly possible using any means available, be it intimidation, bending the laws, or by outright committing fraud (Enron, MSFT, Tyco, Martha Stewart, Philip-Morris, Shell Oil, Nestle, etc, etc, etc). I seriously hope you were trying to troll someone, because people are bad enough already; money only makes them worse.