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Microsoft Patents the Mother of All Adware
An anonymous reader writes "Ars Technica has an article on the mother of all adware patents filed by Microsoft: 'It's such a tremendously bad idea that it's almost bound to succeed. Microsoft has filed another patent, this one for an "advertising framework" that uses "context data" from your hard drive to show you advertisements and "apportion and credit advertising revenue" to ad suppliers in real time.' Ars discusses this disturbing concept, which was originally unearthed by Information Week and we first discussed last week."
this is a horrible idea. Using the client's whole computer, hard drive contents included, to sell ads is just wrong.
Show this to your friends and family that don't know what a real hacker is
This is one of the rare times that I approve of a software patent, for two reasons:
1. This patent will prevent other people from doing the same thing, and
2. If MS actually does this, more people will leave Windows behind.
Thomas Galvin
Isn't this exactly what Google Desktop and Google Mail and Google Cookies do?
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
...I say let them. There is no way my organization would ever stand for this sort of data mining; They'll leave windows far far behind before this happens.
That said, for a company of MS's financial strength, filing a patent is a trivial process; Therefore they will patent what they think of and consider it a resource to be used for whatever purpose at a later date. I highly doubt they actually have plans to put this in an OS.
I've been wrong before of course.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
You'll have agreed to this in the EULA. Under the section where they reserve the right to install whatever updates they like.
"The software would also free advertising from its traditional browser yoke. "A word processor may display a banner ad along the top of a window, similar to a toolbar, while a graphical ad may be displayed in a frame associated with the application. A digital editor for photos or movies may support video-based advertisements," the patent application says."
Prior art: The original Realplayer. Freeware products have been doing this for more than a decade. It was a dumb idea then, its a dumb idea now.
Kevin Smith on Prince
You'll have agreed to this in the EULA. Under the section where they reserve the right to install whatever updates they like.
Oh, that'll fly.
*in the nebulous future*
Me: Well, in order to get the latest security update, we have to install the service that scans our hard drives in order to provide targeted advertising.
CIO: What? Repeat that.
Me: Ummm. Well, Microsoft's latest service pack installs a service that gathers information from the files on your hard disks in order to provide more targeted ads an-
CIO: Like FUCK it does. I don't fucking care how you do it, block that fucker from running. You go do that now - I'm calling our Microsoft rep to have a little chat...
As far as I can see, this will die on the vine.
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
You just need to look at the third world (and Middle East) to understand that in the absence of accountability, the most cynically and paranoid psychopathic entities are the ones that become the top leaders. The free market is supposed to provide the accountability and the democratic government is supposed to insure the free market and The People are supposed to insure the democratic government, but the government has been infested by the psychopathic corporations. It's up to The People to correct the government, but they are asleep at the switch.
Sure implementing this patent would be pretty damn evil and intrusive IF it was just foisted on the public. However, we have no reason to believe MS intends to do anything of the kind.
For starters they may be patenting this 'technology' (it's kinda obvious) defensively to prevent other people from implementing it (even as an 3rd party addition to windows). Alternatively they may be planning to offer special free computers to people who agree to be subject to this sort of invasive advertising. I don't like the idea myself but if other people are fairly informed and want to get their free computer anyway why should I tell them they shouldn't?
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
I stopped watching television altogether a few years ago, aside from the occasional SNL when I remember it's on (yea I know, SNL isn't funny, save it). I just find the commercials really disgusting. Whenever I do catch tv now, say when I get bored of staring at my thumbs while visiting relitives, the ads really make me queasy, physically not figuratively. Something about the rapid ramp up of music and the incessant talking, those earworm jingles. There's no silence between commercials anymore, not even a small blip. One just feeds right into the next with their micro-plots and wild changes of tone. It bothers me that so much talent and work goes into making something so disposable. They're really engineered at a fundamental level to get into your mind and stay there, and I think that's something way more insidious than most people realize.
The other day I went into best buy and bought a $30 bluetooth adapter. The cashier asked if I wanted a $10 2-year warranty on the thing. I firmly declined and as she went on explaining the benefits of this program I felt less and less happy to be shopping in a brick & mortar store. The cashier was just doing her job but I still wanted to strangle whatever marketting exec makes them do that. I find generally all advertising really off-putting anymore. I know what the hell I want to buy, I don't get sold things. I'll take a psych test to prove it. I know it works well on lots of sheeple, but let me opt out damn you.
My point is, I'm getting pretty hostile to marketting, and as far as I can help it I won't have any more business with MS if they engage seriously in this strategy. There's enough spam out there, it really doesn't belong anywhere in a fundamental part of an OS.
I suppose it could just be me, but it sure seems obvious what they're doing here. They're trying to acquire a patent defense against Google. Google's raking them over the coals about desktop search - and it's pretty clear how Google would go about making money off desktop search: targeted advertising.
So Microsoft is trying to get a defensive patent to prevent Google from leveraging the OS as an ad-serving mechanism. The proximate motive for this is, I believe, probably to use as ammo against Google in the current dispute, and certainly in the inevitable near- and mid-term disputes.
Which is not to say that MS itself won't implement a tech like this in some fashion at some point, but I'm in agreement with some other posters that it will be a free/cheap version of Windows. They're just not short-sighted enough to try and shovel this into the enterprise; it would be the end of Windows upgrades for business if they did.
Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
Here's this OS. You see, it's a $1200 OS. You have 2 choices:
1) $600 + adware. See, you get a discount, so it's OK for us to spy on you.
2) $1200, without adware. 3) Thank you for your offer, Mr. Gates, but intercourse you, I'm buying a $1000 PC and installing Ubuntu.
4) Thank you for your offer, Mr. Gates, but intercourse you, I'm buying a Mac.
Option #1, [a video game console.] Option #2, [a PC as we know it, running GNU OS. The vast majority of web sites will be made compatible only with video game consoles.] Given the number of businesses whose servers run Solaris, BSD, or GNU operating systems, how would this fly? Microsoft Hotmail, the only approved mail service since they merged with the Postal Service. United States Postal Service is a public utility. Microsoft is a convicted monopolist. How would this fly, except perhaps under President JEB? And how would it fly for communication between the United States of America and other countries? Linux will of course be part of that warez scene since after the Patent Wars any useful program will be in violation of at least one IBM distributes pieces of a GNU OS for its servers. Those pieces under GPLv3 come with patent licenses. And how are you sure that the patent wars won't end with the majority of these patents invalidated on account of obviousness given the prior art or just plain reading on prior art?