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Amazon Patents Customized 404 Pages

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the makes-my-heart-hurt dept.

theodp writes "Among the patents awarded to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos on Tuesday was one for his invention of Error Processing Methods for Providing Responsive Content to a User When a Page Load Error Occurs, which covers displaying alternate web pages in response to HTTP 404 page-not-found errors. So is this the technology that causes Amazon's Home Page to be displayed when Bezos' MIA Patent Reform Page can't be found?"

7 of 167 comments (clear)

  1. 404'd! by boristdog · · Score: 5, Funny

    404'd!

  2. Not prior art by codegen · · Score: 5, Informative

    The patent is not about the server serving custom
    error pages (which is your post), but about a client
    side process that communicates with a separate error server
    to generate the appropriate response. So I would guess it
    is a intended to be a plugin for a browser.

    But then this is slashdot, why bother to read the article.

    --
    Atlas stands on the earth and carries the celestial sphere on his shoulders.
    1. Re:Not prior art by LiquidCoooled · · Score: 5, Funny

      What error is displayed when the error server is not found?

      --
      liqbase :: faster than paper
  3. It's *CLIENT* based by ps236 · · Score: 5, Informative

    If anyone else has read the patent, they'll realise that it's a CLIENT-SIDE component that's involved.

    Most (all?) 'automatic redirect' systems I've seen are server based - the server runs a script which says 'That page couldn't be found, did you mean any of these...'

    I can't imagine who'd put this on the client with client-server communication going on. It sounds like a vastly over-engineered and 'Enterprisey' solution to me. It DOES have the advantage that it can look back in the browser history, but I'm not sure I see how that could benefit the user (the component COULD tell the server what's in the history though, so it could benefit Amazon!)

  4. MSIE did it. by Rob+T+Firefly · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Much as I'm loath to hold it up as an example of anything ever, Internet Explorer has been using client-based action to generate a friendly "This page cannot be displayed" page in place of 404 errors for years and years.

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    Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
  5. Useful bit of engineering by GauteL · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... which is using a well known malware/phishing technique.

    It is a client component (read adware/malware) that intercepts 404 messages, calls home to find out where to redirect the user, then redirects.

    i.e. if you type in "slahdsot.org" it will search a database of misspellings and redirect you to "slashdot.org".

    or.. in the case of malware.. if you type in "myinternetbank.com" it could redirect you to "myphishingsite.com".

    I'd be surprised if there isn't prior art among the less ethical Internet inventions out there.

  6. Re:How stupid can the patent office be.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Its not all the patent offices fault. They have to follow the rules, and those rules were not set up for the torrent of patents they receive these days.


    They should use Comcast, then. That should slow the torrents down a bit...

    *cower (Rank 8)*