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Xeroxing Personal Data From Your Browsing History

Posted by samzenpus on from the xerox-knows dept.

grease_boy writes "Xerox has filed a patent covering a technique to recover demographic information like your age, sex and perhaps even your income by analysing the pattern of web pages you browse. They want to license the technique to online advertisers and shops. Read the full patent here."

7 of 116 comments (clear)

  1. More lame patents by omeomi · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Wow, great, another patent covering something completely obvious, like analyzing my browser history to find out what sorts of things I might like.

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    ZuluPad, the wiki notepad on crack
    1. Re:More lame patents by catbutt · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Typically patents cover the particular way something is accomplished. For instance, if you invent an airplane and patent it, you are not patenting flying in general (which might be said to be an obvious idea), but the specifics of how you accomplished it. Someone else, who uses a different approach to fly, will not infringe your patent.

      Did you read the 20 claims before assuming their technique is obvious?

    2. Re:More lame patents by QuantumG · · Score: 5, Funny

      Of course not. This is Slashdot, no-one here understands patents and no-one here thinks anything should be patentable.

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      How we know is more important than what we know.
  2. In order to protect my identity ... by khasim · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...I must download more lesbian pr0n.

    Get real. This is worthy of a patent? Just by the fact that you're reading this post you're most likely male, some college, etc.

  3. Can you patent an illegal process? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The patent may well have merit but to be used it would have to break the law. Notwithstanding that governments may keep them for national security reasons, if the law in a country prevents a third party using or selling browsing habits for commercial purposes is it possible to take out a patent that presumes illegal behaviour? Such as a method of extracting money from a bank using a shotgun? Aren't they getting a little ahead of themselves in thier race to the bottom of corporatist fascism? Or is this very revealing patent application telling us that they consider buying the necessary laws to use it a mere formality?

  4. Re:So if I'm looking at bestiality pr0n by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Sheep farmer, Male, Scotland.

  5. Xerox must be doing worse than I thought by StringBlade · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They used to come up with new and innovative ideas such as, the Xerox copier, a graphical user interface using windows, and a host of other innovate technologies.
    Now they've reduced themselves to patent trolling in order to pander to marketing scum. Just, wow.

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    ...and that's the way the cookie crumbles.