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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.
to fight Google.
You see, they look at Google and do not get jealous of Google's achievements per se, they get jealous of Google's revenue streams and hence are attacking the revenue stream (advertising) without adding value to the consumer.
Now, you may argue that this bloatware will make the OS cheaper, but what I think will likely happen over the long run (if this ever goes through) is that the cheapest OS will cost the same and people will have to buy a "premium" version to avoid the ads. If people complain, Microsoft will point out that they got the ad-supported version "free" with the OEM computer (while not mentioning the OEM also paid for that copy).
When I first heard the name "Windows Genuine Advantage," I thought, "hey, great; I've finally got an advantage over those smug Mac OS X and LInux users!" Then, of course, came the awful truth.
When I first heard the name "Trusted Computing," I thought, "hey, great; does this, like, mean I can make clicky-clicky on links in the sketchiest of web pages without gasping in shock at the horrors of pathological proctology?" Then, of course, came the awful truth.
This evening, upon reading the name "Advertising Services Architecture," I thought, "hey, great; is this a cool new enabling technology that will this help me sell more stuff and make more money on eBay?" Then, yet again, came the awful truth, as pointed out in the link to this article.
As far as I know, these are but three of the 100 reasons I'll be speechless for Microsoft Vista. Or saying "Wow!" But: Is there some context in the English language in which "Wow!" means "I've got an axe buried in my head?" (Being speechless does, after all, seem to be an appropriate response to such trauma, and so I was trying to make the connection between the two.) Because after all the all the aforementioned truths, after finding out that this vast infrastructure for which I'm paying has nothing to do whatsoever with that for which I want to use a computer, well, that's kind of what I imagine it feels like.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, write technology blogs.
3 things about computers: they're alive, they're self-aware, and they hate your guts.
Yeah, but that's free as in communism. This gonna be free like America!
I guess that they all outrank private data.