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."

Comments

Adblock?

[saibot834]

Fortunately nothing changes for most geeks, because Adblock filters most ads. :)

Less of an interruption???

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

According to the patent application, "The benefit to the user is the perception that the ads are more relevant, and therefore, less of an interruption."

For me, ads that look more like the content that I actually want to read are more of an interruption because it takes me longer to differentiate between the important content and the crap.

Capture, milk, rinse, repeat

[pieterh]

Microsoft has such a cynically exploitative view of the market that they truly prove that large corporations can be psychotic.

While the rest of the economy maintains some kind of pretense of "ethics", Microsoft seem to have decided that not a single rule counts. They mock the EU's anti-trust actions, they rape the ISO process, and they screw their loyal customers more often than that guy in Oz.

No-one is going to shed a tear when they are up against the wall.

free oS in the offing?

[dotpavan]

not sure that "paying" users (both corporate and average Joe sixpack) would be forced with these ads.. it seems (guess work) MS "might" come out with a free OS and bank on the ad-generated revenue to compete with Linux (and other OS) and reduce piracy in the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) nations. remember the ad-based OS launched in Brazil?

this might be the mother of all adware, but MS might get to say "who's your daddy?"

Let me get this straight

[the_other_one]

They will access my personal data on my hard drive without my authorization for monetary gain.

It is interesting that it is possible to patent a crime in the US.

Re:Let me get this straight

[Target Drone]

Microsoft will likely not use this anywhere except their home edition, and they will probably reduce the price of the OS to make it a little more palatable to consumers

I used to work for an ISP that offered free Internet but you had to run their app that displayed ads while you were connected. After the dot com crash advertising rates were too low and they offered two different services. A $7/month with ads and a $10/month with no ads. All of the customers took the $10/month option. It seems that people are wiling to tolerate ads to get something for free but if it's a pay product then they'd rather pay more to get it without the ads.

So if Microsoft uses this they should give Windows/Office/whatever away for free.

Re:Prior Art

[goombah99]

Apart from Google can't make it an integral part of your Operating system. Why can't google have Kernel extensions? Even without a kernel extension, why can't the software search your user data? It's certainly doing it just that since it's forming search indicies. And since it can search across computers it is shipping these back to a central server. So I fail to appreciate your point.

Re:indeed

[morgan_greywolf]

this is a horrible idea. Using the client's whole computer, hard drive contents included, to sell ads is just wrong.

I think you guys are all getting the wrong idea. Microsoft isn't likely to be so much as implementing, as much as being in the patent license business. IOW, the plan is to sue adware producers for patent infringement, driving them away from producing the adware that plagues their operating system products. They might license it to a select few companies who do adware that doesn't screw up someone's entire OS, but I think the general goal is to get rid of adware through brute force rather than fixing the technological problems that allow it to proliferate.

I don't think this is going into Vista

[lena_10326]

It seems apparent to me Microsoft is filing ad patents because they intend to release a free or almost free version of a Vista-lite that's loaded with ad serving software to cover the expense loss. Inserting ad malware into their flagship product would be suicide. They're not that stupid.

Microsoft probably intends to compete with free Linux with a free Windows OS.

Re:If We're Going To Patent Software...

[SirSmiley]

I recently went to Feisty Fawn from XP/Vista. I've dabbled in linux many times but never kept it around. I finally went and did the switch because I have a PS3 for games (mainly playing ps2 games and renting the ps3 ones).

I could not be happier...vlc plays my movies, im comfortable with the odd command line (apt-get install vlc-player) i have azureus and limewire...all is well :D I do work on the side for people on their pcs and its amazing how many request me to get rid of vista and put their old xp back on once theyve gone and upgraded....keeps me in business!

my laptop is still xp though! (for some reason I have issues on occasional live video streams for instance all the ones on proelite.com (mixed martial arts). I am happy for the fact that i come home, turn ubuntu on and just use it...i dont have microsoft telling me what i should and could do....im a convert and i have samba sharing up my movies folder to my xp media pc in the basement (itll be linux once i figure out how to reliably get my tv tuner to work)

Re:Prior Art

[networkBoy]

Rather than modding I will respond...

Specifically Google has an exchange that reads: We'll give you software applications, remote disk space, and e-mail. In exchange anything you use our services for we will parse for key[words|phrases] and serve you an ad or two. This is how you agree to pay for using our services.

Now... if Microsoft were to come out with an OS that was free as in beer in exchange for taking a percentage of your screen for ads then it would fall under the same overall principle, aside from the disk space portion. If the ads were as inoffencive as Google's text ads, I may even consider it. My gut feeling, however, says otherwise, and if I have to pay for an OS then looking at my files as anything other than blocks of bits to store on a disk and optimize for space will happen over my dead computer.
-nB

Re:Don't give your dribe to M$

[fr4nk]

especially because I never gave permission to M$ to read it
Well, if you actually have the software mentioned in TFA installed, you most likely have accepted to some sort of EULA or contract allowing it to use your data...

This is good

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Just like no sane criminal wants to compete with the Mafia, yet will work against cops, I can imagine that Microsoft will squelch freelance adware/malware vendors in a way the authorities cannot.

Re:indeed

[morgan_greywolf]

I'm not a Google fanboi. Check my posts. I'm as quick to criticize them for their negative actions as anybody. And I'm just as quick to praise them for bringing useful tools to the Internet. If Microsoft is out to screw Google, it's no skin off my nose -- it's not like I own any Google stock. But Microsoft does have a history of using patents to threaten and beat potential competitors into submission, and I'm very much against that, no matter which of their competitors they're playing dirty pool with.

Maybe for different versions of Windows

[flanksteak]

This strikes me as too intrusive for anyone to accept on a paid piece of software, but maybe MS is considering someday giving Windows away for free in exchange for the user having to watch ads? They already know that people pirate their products and no matter what they do, someone will crack the piracy. Someone will probably crack the ad stuff, too, but Aunt Tillie may not mind if she can get a cheap box that let's her send email and exchange pictures of her rose bushes and grandkids.

Or MS will give up the "cripple your unlicensed windows copy" and just turn on ads if you fail WGA. Piracy problem solved. Download it and watch ads, or pay us and don't. Either way you can still surf the web and play solitaire.

I suppose there's also the possibility of using something like this on kiosks or other public and/or shared terminals.

There has to be more to this than just sticking ads on licensed copies of Windows.

Google Block. More M$ FUD on the Way.

[twitter]

We can only hope that this makes it into an early service pack for Vista, and that Microsoft announces it poorly, resulting wholesale defection of their corporate user-base to Apple and Linux-based desktops.

We can only hope this is what Ballmer means by M$ services. The whole crapware industry that Softies point to when it comes to Dell selling gnu/linux is prior art, but that has never kept M$ from claiming invention.

A more disturbing possibility is they only obviously implement this on crappy free ware versions of Windoze and then claim Google is violating their patents. This would be both a FUD and judicial assault, much like the SCO case. They will, of course, continue the worst practices themselves while claiming innocence and smearing everyone else.

Does anyone need more evidence to abandon non free software?

Re:indeed

[morgan_greywolf]

And, um, exactly when has this stopped them (or any other tech company *cough*Amazon*cough*) from obtaining a patent before?

Re:I've grown to despise advertising

[Anonymous Coward]

When someone gives you the hard pitch for the extended warrantee, tell them you have changed your mind and walk out without buying anything.

Later, come back and try again. It can even be just a couple of hours later.

Eventually, the sales people who ignore the instructions on "upselling" will be getting better numbers than those who don't. And if you don't think it isn't tracked on that level, you've never worked in a big-box retailer.

It is socially difficult to walk away the first time. It's like the first time you went a week without TV. It gets easier, and then natural, and eventually you won't be able to stand still through a pitch like that if you wanted to.

Re:indeed

[suitepotato]

I think you guys are all getting the wrong idea. Microsoft isn't likely to be so much as implementing, as much as being in the patent license business. IOW, the plan is to sue adware producers for patent infringement, driving them away from producing the adware that plagues their operating system products. They might license it to a select few companies who do adware that doesn't screw up someone's entire OS, but I think the general goal is to get rid of adware through brute force rather than fixing the technological problems that allow it to proliferate.

It would be a great thing if this is true and really, I want to believe it. No one loses more than Microsoft every time someone else screws up something that happens to run on their OS. On an irregular basis Turbine's Dungeons and Dragons Online client crashes my PC's sound system drivers so badly that my machine blue screens. MOST Slashdot people would reflexively blame Microsoft for that, but neither the client nor the drivers were written by Microsoft. Do I or anyone else blame Red Hat when I have trouble getting third party screen savers to build and work right on the newest iteration of Fedora Core? No.

If anything, using the IP-infringement cudgel against the miscreants would be priceless. It's like designing bioweapons before your enemy gets them done so you can get a headstart on the process of designing blocking agents and cures for them, negating them before they can be deployed, but (mostly) without the messy prospect of them being deployed by your side. That being said, Microsoft might use this to their advantage with IP-mismanagement vis a vis multimedia and the ongoing war over fair use, but then again, Microsoft WROTE Windows so if they wanted to root kit their own OS, they could do it a dozen times over on multiple levels to the point that the OS was one large trojan dedicated to monitoring everything you did and really, would they get far with that given that if a third party fouls up their bugtesting, no one blames that third party and instead just whines that Microsoft sucks?

If anything, the paranoia towards Microsoft works towards making this patent and sue the miscreants thing a big win for us and Microsoft as we get the biggest dog on the PC block throwing its legal weight against the schmucks who write malware and we get to see Microsoft taking these threats seriously and instead of being reactionary and patching, actually being proactive and offensive, taking out the people who write these things. Sure, it could go wrong, but then, it always could.

Re:No

[griffjon]

Privoxy, on the other hand, may quickly be able to prevent this hassle. Or a well trained firewall. Or, of course, using an OS that spends its cycles providing you with utility, productivity, information and eye candy, rather than advertisements. But who'd want that?

Re:Best news all day

[Anonymous Coward]

Simple.
Set up your Yahoo account information in Kopote (if you are using Kubuntu).
Works with MSN accounts also.
I'm not sure what the default IM client is in Ubuntu.
Pigdin can also be installed and works fine with Yahoo and MSN.

Re:Prior Art

[SL Baur]

Now... if Microsoft were to come out with an OS that was free as in beer in exchange for taking a percentage of your screen for ads That's exactly how it would work. Give away a free computer with a free O/S + applications in exchange for hosting the ad software. The advertising could probably be made targeted enough that they could pay people to use such systems and turn a profit. After all, plenty of people in the US buy into the "Who cares about privacy, I have nothing to hide" line.

The only thing interesting to me about this article is whether the patent is general enough that malicious viral adware now constitutes a patent violation. Along the same lines, I wish Microsoft had patented email spam so they could now be suing email spammers for patent violations.

Trusted Network Connect

[tepples]

Microsoft can't make it part of my operating system. I won't let their system anywhere near my hardware. And within a decade, the two high-speed ISPs in your area won't let any OS that hasn't been digitally signed by Microsoft Corp or Apple Inc anywhere near its last mile because free or cracked operating systems fail its Trusted Network Connect tests.

Re:Trusted Network Connect

[wirelessbuzzers]

I don't understand you people. It's a possibility that open-source software soon won't be able to play mainstream movies. (It can't legally play them now, IIRC, but that doesn't stop anyone.) Linux already can't run most commercial software, at least not without messy and dubiously-legal WINE hacking. But ISPs cutting off network services? Websites refusing to connect to open source browsers or operating systems? Laptops that block Linux installations? These are exceedingly unlikely.

Why? Because all ISPs, all computer vendors and most websites have a strong commercial incentive to allow users access, regardless of their software. You pay your ISP for a connection, and in general they don't give a shit how you use it, as long as they're not missing an opportunity to upsell you. Computer vendors want to sell you hardware; they don't care what you run on said hardware as long as they don't have to provide tech support. Commerce websites don't care what you're running as long as you buy stuff. Other websites care that you're not running an ad blocker, but that's about it.

Of course, Microsoft could bribe or blackmail these guys, but that'd get shot down faster than you can say "RICO". There are enough Linux sympathizers in the corporate world to bankroll the lawsuit, too.

Palladium has been around for two years, and all we've seen with it is enterprise security. Yes, they'll probably use it for DRM eventually. I know, you have to be vigilant, but that doesn't mean you have to be paranoid.

And yes, I run Linux.

Re:Trusted Network Connect

[tepples]

all ISPs, all computer vendors and most websites have a strong commercial incentive to allow users access Residential Internet service providers also have a strong commercial incentive to keep malware off their networks and off their other customers' PCs, and if Trusted Computing proponents manage to convince e.g. Comcast and Verizon that Trusted Network Connect can do that, then Trusted Network Connect it is.

Computer vendors want to sell you hardware; they don't care what you run on said hardware Tell that to Sony Computer Entertainment, maker of the PSP handheld computer.

Who says you will get a choice in the matter?

[jmorris42]

> 3) Thank you for your offer, Mr. Gates, but intercourse you, I'm buying a $1000 PC and installing Ubuntu.

Nice sentiment but take a moment to consider what the actual offer will be:

Option #1, the Dell M-Box, brought to you by Pepsi (this month, next month another sponsor....).

Plays mainstream media. Meaning everything on sale at Best Buy/Walmart in the movie, music and games depts. Cable TV will be delivered through it. Allowed to connect to the Internet and perform E-Commerce, required for E-Voting, filing your taxes and renewing your driver's license. Can run Microsoft Office, required to interchange documents via Microsoft Hotmail, the only approved mail service since they merged with the Postal Service. The only way to transfer content to your iPod. (Even in a total distopia I can't see the Zune beating the iPod at this point.)

Not allowed to run any unsigned binaries.

Option #2,

Buy a PC on the grey market and install Ubuntu. You can run anything you like but you won't connect to the Internet with it, at least legally. There will be hacks to allow basic IP access but no major website will allow you to connect because your browser won't bear the mark of the beast. Generate too much traffic out on the dark net and you will get noticed so P2P will be right out. Warez will of course not cease, just return to face to face exchange of really high capacity media, 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 and therefore illegal to traffic in and also comply with the GPL.

Now, how many people will actually pick Option #2? They won't even have to police the gray market too hard, no more than they pretend to fight the War on Some Drugs. Just the social stigma of being outlaw will keep it safely contained to a ghetto.

Re:Google Block. More M$ FUD on the Way.

[Macthorpe]

Yes, because Apple are the epitome of niceness. They've never locked anyone in to a format, platform or device.

Re:indeed

[StarvingSE]

Does Microsoft intend to pay each of their users to act as little personal ad servers? Seriously, if MS is wasting cycles on my CPU indexing my data for keywords so they can show me some ads, I want to be paid for that CPU time. It's not their hardware.

If this comes to fruition, I am never using another MS product again. I will deal with not being able to play my favorite games, it will be well worth it.

Re:What's with the anti-advertizing knee-jerk?

[wm_brant]

Advertising is visual pollution. It is meant to catch your attention i.e., distract you from what you were looking at. I don't have enough time already to do the things I want without being interrupted by advertising.

If I want to research something, I will. If I want to buy something, I will. But I am going to buy something, I will choose the product I want, based on the results of my research. I deliberately ignore advertising because it is inherently biased. It's the visual equivalent of propaganda, and I do not listen to, nor watch, nor read, propaganda. If you like to watch propaganda, please feel free, but it's not for me.

I watch -- maybe -- about 3 hours of television a week, and it's never the same show. And I still find the ads repetitive, repugnant, and counter-productive -- I find that I actively dislike the companies that try to grab my attention to sell me something that I either already have, don't want, or don't need.

I also don't listen to radio and I rarely notice the ads in newspapers and magazines. I block ads in my browsers, and keep my computers adware-free.

If you feel the need to buy the latest of a never-ending stream of 'gotta-have' (not!) gadgets, please feel free to let marketers manipulate your emotions so you feel you cannot live without their product. And, by the way, has owning any of those 'gotta-haves' *really* make you happier after the initial warm and fuzzy feelings leave?

FWIW, I once spent a few hours working with the Amazon recommendation system to try to get it to recommend something that I was actually interested in. I entered a fair number of the books I own, the DVDs that I own, and other things that they sell. End result: it never came up with a recommendation that I thought was worthwhile, or I didn't already own. Then I went back, and removed all my ratings, and never looked at the recommendations again. I'm a complex person. My wife -- despite trying for many years -- could never find a gift for me that I really liked. No computer-based system will ever be as good as she was, which wasn't very good.

I recognize that my values and attitudes are not held by many. However, they are *my* values and attitudes, and I will stick with them. If M$ thinks I will *ever* buy a system with crapware like they are trying to patent in it, they are wrong.

Looks like Linus, OS X, and Google (if they are planning to build an OS) will be picking up lots of market share.

    -- Bill

Re:Prior Art

[killjoe]

>. What was this deal regarding? If you don't know, then shut up.

Nobody knows. It's secret and neither MS nor Novell will publish the agreement.

Do you know? You sound like you work for Novell so perhaps you could leak it here. It would be the ethical thing to do.