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Will Microsoft Put The Colonel in the Kernel?
theodp writes "The kernel meets The Colonel in a just-published Microsoft patent application for an Advertising Services Architecture, which delivers targeted advertising as 'part of the OS.' Microsoft, who once teamed with law enforcement to protect consumers from unwanted advertising, goes on to boast that the invention can 'take steps to verify ad consumption,' be used to block ads from competitors, and even sneak a peek at 'user document files, user e-mail files, user music files, downloaded podcasts, computer settings, [and] computer status messages' to deliver more tightly targeted ads."
Microsoft has realized that protecting consumers and selling high quality products are not ways they can make money any longer. Getting in bed with corporations and ad agencies and selling out the customer is looking to become much more profitable for them.
What really scares me is that for this to be successful, without some type of backlash from the user community, it would have to be forced on us. As in, forced so you could no longer install another operating system on your computer. Perhaps this is there for when they sue Linux out of oblivion, or at least try to. Otherwise, who would ever use another Microsoft product.
Then again, the data collected from such an endeavor would be so valuable, Microsoft could market computers for free with this software installed. Perhaps that the only other way this is successful.
i think i speak for everyone when i say "what the fuck??" when did OPERATING SYSTEMS become billboards? so when the next MS OS comes out, instead of everyone looking for activation cracks they'll be looking first for how the hell to get the adds off of their desktop? asking people to view shit at the bottom of msn messenger is one thing, but there is a line.
I guess that they all outrank private data.