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Microsoft Seeks Another OS-Level Adware Patent
theodp writes "Microsoft has just published a patent application for advertising triggered by sequences of user actions, which describes how to interrupt game playing, music listening, and photo viewing with pop-up ads ('the components may be integrated directly into the operating system'). So will this ad technology get a free pass from Windows Defender?"
I'm dying to see the reaction to this.
"Quick, get to the health fountain.... What the.. My character DIED so I can learn about Diet Caffeine Free Tab??"
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
I see you are rebooting again, click here to burn a Live CD, courtesy of Canonical.
One good thing about all these things is that, pretty soon people will be so horrified by the user experience in the Windows, they will be pushed into adopting Linux. After all it is the well integrated pop-up blocker that created the initial mass of downloads for Firefox.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
This probably means that Microsoft is preparing a "Free as in ad supported" version of Windows for the day when FOSS starts taking over (FASS = Free, Ad Supported Software).
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These patents are being presented with Microsoft's long term business goals in mind- to integrate ads into the OS as they make their shift towards SaaS of the coming years and to integrate with Windows Live among other things... since they seem to think the thick client will go the way of the dodo (what morons, the real killer thin client is a portable pc, laptop, phone, etc.. not one without it's own OS and defined userspace) and they will be able to create a (for lack of a better word) layer or shim for advertising which they will charge for advertising on. Think of the "cloud" crap you keep hearing about from Mr. Ballmer.
The good news is, this will fail miserably similar to Netzero's old revenue model (when they first started). The bad news is, they have a larger money vault than Uncle Scrooge so they will recover and continue to make idiot ideas...
My initial reaction to this was along the lines of it being just another possible plan by microsoft to gouge the consumer. However what if this is actually technology to fight piracy but minimize the effect on legitimate customers.
Microsofts current anit-piracy activites (i.e. the Vista Black screen of death) can cause a legitimate customers computer to become virutally in-operable when the malfunction. Imagine the following scenario however.
You can download and install Windows without any sort of licence key for free, but you will need to live with the pop-up ads which effectivly pay for the operating system. You would still have the option of purchasing a licence and thereby getting rid of the ads.
Would this be a legitimate (i.e. not evil) use of this patent?
Technology is most abused by the very people it was created to help
How about "Community Released, Ad Supported Software"?
A goal is a dream with a deadline
It's funny to see Microsoft use these same tactics over and over again. No matter who the competitor, they leverage their control of the OS to attack their competition.
Does anyone disagree that this patent is an expression of Microsoft applying this formula to supplant Google's dominance in advertising? I'm a little dubious as to its potential threat to Google, but time will tell.
This stinks like the preparations for advertising-supported Microsoft products.
"'Yrch!' said Legolas, falling into his own tongue."
Just maybe, perhaps, this will give MS a way of going after spyware and malware authors - on the basis of patent infringement.
It might not be a patent that they intend to use, except in the courts...anything that gets rid of Windows malware helps Microsoft, after all.
Ad sponsored software is one thing, but when I pay for a program and and updates to that program insert ads that I did not agree to view that is not acceptable.
Opera didn't just one day start showing ads when there were none before.
And ad sponsored software is usually free (beer) software. You cannot sell something, and then add ads to it with a service pack or update.
That's just wrong, and informing us of it is not FUD.
You sir, are an idiot.
Linux Zealots: Smarter than Mac Zealots, but still zealots.
Read the patent. It uses a statistical model to analyze what the user is doing and suggest services the user might be interested in. Kinda like what Google ads does, but within a program.
The picture linked shows this in action. The user is processing images. The ad, which is enabled in the software, suggests photo development services of several clients.
From the patent,
Finally, in the screen display shown in FIG. 7, a user has navigated to a user interface 700 for accessing and viewing photos 702 stored on the user device. For example, the user may have downloaded photos 702 from a digital camera and may be viewing the photos in the user display 700. The system may determine based on these user actions that a likely task that the user would like to perform would be to send one or more of the photos 702 to an online photo development center. Additionally, the system may determine that the user does not currently have any particular online photo development service subscriptions. As such, the system has selected and presented a number of advertisements for online photo development services in a preview pane 704 of the user interface 700.
One particular application. Claiming it is 'adware' 'getting a pass from Windows Defender' is nothing but kdawsonfud, not the first and certainly not the last. All it is, an idea, not all that different from the targeted advertising provided by a certain search engine slashbots seem so quick to defend against all claims.
More likely, you'll have to pay $19.95 to download Windows Ad Supported.
If you want to get rid of most of the ads, you'll have to pay an additional $189.95. After paying this fee, you'll only see the Microsoft Premiere Vendor(TM) ads. And only every other day.
To go completely ad-free, you'll have to buy a Premier Partner Subscription, with a one-time activation charge of $399.95 and monthly subscription fee of $19.95.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
I don't disagree that this is how it will start, but the tin-foil hat me says that based on the past performance of MS, they will ultimately end up doing both: charging for windows and selling ads for that same installation. It may not be on "purpose", but I believe it will happen.
The reality, as I see it from under my shiny, crinkly dome shaped lid is that *everything* is subject to being plastered with ads and the computer desktop is not exempt. Someone somewhere will eventually pay enough to get their ad on MS's desktop. period.
I also wouldn't put it past MS to "accidently" serve up ads to those who have paid to avoid them. As we all know, these kinds of things happen all the time. And many people have been "trained" to believe that this is just the way computers are. Sometimes they just don't work the way you tell them to... MS has spent decades teaching people that computers sometimes do random things for no reason and that's apparently totally acceptable to most. So why not the same with the ads?
MS will integrate this technology into the OS directly and then "turn it off" from some server, so even those who have the "ad-free" version of Windows will have the adware running on their system, it will just be checking to see whether it should serve up the ads or not. When that server goes down, it will "default" to serving up the ads until MS gets around to repairing it.
I now doff my recyclable metal head covering.
man, I feel like mold.