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Google Seeking Patent On Ads For Street View
theodp writes "CNET reports that Google is 'musing' about placing ads in Street View. The search giant reportedly floated the idea in a presentation to marketing and ad agency types in Europe a few months back. So will virtual billboards be popping up in Google Street View? A Google rep said the company had no current plans to put ads in Street View, but you might want to take that with a grain of salt. On Thursday, the USPTO revealed that Google is seeking patent protection for Claiming Real Estate in Panoramic or 3D Mapping Environments for Advertising. From the patent application: 'The street view display server can locate an ad image within the image database and overlay the region of interest with the associated ad image.' Connect the dots, and it sure sounds like a plan, doesn't it? Selling the Brooklyn Bridge is a pretty good scam — selling a view of it is even better!"
TV broadcasters have been doing this with football games and the billboard in Times Square for years, and game publishers have also been doing it with their virtual street views.
Google - for all your patent troll needs.
Congratulations, Google! You've figured out how to change a useful feature (seeing what the street really looks like) into a useless one (overlaying the street view with things that aren't actually there)! Brilliant!
ScienceSeeker.org
There are many ways to use a patent.
One of them is to patent something so that others cannot use the feature to add value to their offereings that compete with yours. The add money that they can stop from flowing to another competitor can keep their service faster, cheaper and better than those that would use the patented feature.
Just an observation, a hope, that google would do this.
Please, there could be great uses for this:
I don't want my license plate there, put an ad over it, or all license plates.
Maybe it wasn't the best day for that picture of your house/business, request that it be redacted, and Google gets ad dollars for . . . respecting your privacy!
With a little sanity, this could help. Personally I wouldn't care if they made some money off of SOMEONE ELSE for respecting privacy requests, but here's hoping that they'd actually respect your request.
Shouldn't the Brooklyn bridge be able to sell its advertising space to Google? I live near a very scenic park, my house overlooks it and is in a bunch of post cards and such, if Google try's to use images of my house for advertising, I'm sooo suing. To be honest Google is getting a bit too big for its britches and has definitely fallen into Microsoft, Intel territory.
Have been doing this for years in video games, prior art anyone?
This sounds like a genius way to get me to stop using StreetView. Not like it was of much use beyond novelty, anyway.
Down with the career politician! SUPPORT TERM LIMITS
This is one of those areas where patents are good. They prevent everybody else from doing this shit. :-)
...doesn't an invention have to be non-obvious to be patentable? Placing ads on a map on the web seems pretty obvious to me...
That's not Picasso, that's Kandinsky!
Google never heard of "Where's Waldo?"
I have stopped using Google directly altogether. I only use its Web search engine through the scroogle.org proxy, I remember when most people were dying to get a Gmail invite. Nowadays practically everyone has at least one Gmail account. I have never used Gmail for anything I consider private and I refuse to email anything private to any Gmail address without at least encrypting it using PGP. I have lost touch with some people because of this, but my privacy is more important to me than staying in touch with everyone.
If you're going to use a picture of my house to place advertisements, then I want to be compensated for the use of my house. Either that or take the photo down. And I'm sure businesses are not going to want a competitor's ad placed in or around a photo of their building!
If you've never been modded as "flamebait" or "troll," you've never tried to argue a minority viewpoint here!
It would be more interesting to see a Laughing Man logo superimposed over peoples faces.
These ads would be just as annoying.
It sounds to me like they intend on finding actual, physical billboards and replacing them with their own virtual ads. No where does it imply that they will be adding additional ads that weren't there in the first place.
... the Fine Arts Gallery. I look it up on Google maps, but when I arrive at the location, all I can find is this building of classical architecture. There's no McDonalds logo (as shown in street view, clown and all) anywhere in sight.
Have gnu, will travel.
you have wayy too much misplaced faith in google..
This is one of those areas where patents are good. They prevent everybody else from doing this shit. :-
They prevent everybody else from using Google's way of doing this shit.
Without a license.
The patent protects only their implementation of the idea.
It does not protect the idea itself.
Which distro does that? I'd like to get it.
Bur just yesterday we saw Mexico claiming copyright on ALL images of their heritage monuments built by the people it killed and eradicated. Google is most likely will cravenly let such governments walk all over it and assert its rights only against fairer governments like that of USA. Sad but that is life.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Congratulations, Google! You've figured out how to change a useful feature (seeing what the street really looks like) into a useless one (overlaying the street view with things that aren't actually there)! Brilliant!
It's useful to advertisers. Just because it's not useful to you doesn't mean that it's not useful to anyone. See Juicy Whip v. Orange Bang.
The patent protects only their implementation of the idea.
It does not protect the idea itself.
Good paraphrase, but almost entirely backwards. That comes from Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service, which was a copyright case. Copyright protects an implementation, but not the idea. Patent law protects the idea, not the specific implementation.
http://www.ismashphone.com/2009/12/stella-artois-le-bar-guide-3d-augmented-reality-app.html
Because if anyone sees an ad next to his house, that does not fly with him, he’s gonna sue. Which means basically everyone who gets that this could mean money. Which in this artificially bad economy means everyone. ;)
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Here is a beta release of the new Google Streetmap.
Would creating a 3d bilboard sign in a VRML world count as previous art?
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
nuf sed
Table-ized A.I.
Patents prevent other people doing something. This means google can block any competing "standalone" streetview type web applications whose only revenue stream planned might have been in-streetview advertising. You may bitch about patents being anticompetitive, since that's what they're for (not for "compensating inventors", that's always been a lie-to-children).
I assumed they would be overlaying ads onto existing advertising space; i.e., billboards. After all, the companies who wanted to advertise on the billboard did so with the expectation that their only audience would be people driving by. By leaving these images as they are, those companies get free advertising, which is not something Google is required to give them. Similarly, if the content of a billboard has changed since the image was taken, it's unfair for the earlier company to receive free advertising while the newer one does not. If they want to superimpose new, relevant ads over old, useless ads, that's fine by me.
Don't blur faces. Don't blur the top of NSA HQ, just stick an ad up there.
So if customer browse in our street they can see what's we offer... This is so cool..
Slashdot shouldn't be linking to sites which require registration, such as the NY Times. To see the article, try this google search. The first link is page one, and the third link is page two.
It would be neat if they could overlay existing billboards and bench ads with their own ads and clicking them brings up a larger view so that they are not obtrusive at all. Ads on existing billboards would make them expected and relevant to some degree. Or if your looking at a store front from street view there already is a link for that stores website (if existes). There is a right way to do advertising and a wrong way of shoving it in every corner you can.
There is no f*cking way I will allow Google to plaster my house with ads, especially those I cannot control. If I don't allow people to deface the sides of my house, why should I allow this virtual graffiti?
Search term "abortion clinic" in your browser? All the ads may lead to pro life supporters (or imaging a abortion clinic ad plastered on a church). Tiger Woods' house? Ads for relationship agencies (as a matter of fact, I have already seen that with Google ads surrounding Tiger Woods reporting). Looking at Neverland? Hey, cool place to stick child protection ads..
Someone who doesn't support Google? I wonder what that house will get for ads..
It would be the equivalent of putting up all those ad boards, but without having to seek permission from the locals.
No way, not ever.
Insert
...when I say FUCK YOU SOFTWARE PATENTS.
Well, OK, some readers may not have used all caps, but that's because they aren't as awesome.
Promote true freedom - support standards and interoperability.