Microsoft's 'Naughty or Nice' Patent Application

theodp writes "Those of you worried about Microsoft's stance on network neutrality won't find much comfort in the software giant's just-published patent application for systems and methods to facilitate self regulation of social networks through trading and gift exchange, which classify users as good or bad and call for network bandwidth to be reduced for those deemed 'less desirable.'"

Comments

Took a while...

[Macthorpe]

...but I did find the part where bandwidth is mentioned as an asset that can be controlled via this system.

While you can look at it one way and say this is just a logical extension of rewarding 'good' users, the fact that the system can be used to punish 'bad' users and explains nothing about how this definition of 'good' and 'bad' will be determined makes me more concerned for the people using such a service.

I bloody well wouldn't.

Slashdot infringes

[LaughingCoder]

Here is the first claim of the patent:

"1. A system that facilitates self-regulation of a social network comprising: a network monitoring component that watches user behavior on the social network; and an asset allocation component that allocates or re-allocates one or more assets among one or more network users based at least in part on whether the user behavior is desirable."

As I read that, the Slashdot moderation system infringes. The "network monitoring component" is the editors and the moderators. They "watch user behavior on the social network". The "asset allocation component" is the karma, which affects how broadly users' messages get seen. Lastly, "based ... on whether the user behavior is desireable" is obviously a big part of the moderation system (flamebait, troll, are ways to discoiurage undesirable behavior).

Re:Prior Art

[Cruise_WD]

And of course there's http://freenetproject.org/ which added with 0.7 darknet mode - a network supposed to be based on an already existing social network, which automatically awards tokens to connections based on their behaviour, which controls their bandwidth and frequency of requests.

There's so many prior art examples of this it's just silly.