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Google Nabs Patent To Monitor Your Cursor Movement

bool2 writes "Google has been awarded a patent for displaying search results based on how you move your mouse cursor on the screen... Google's plans are to monitor the movements of the cursor, such as when a user hovers over a certain ad or link to read a tooltip, and then provide relevant search results, and ads, based on that behaviour. It means that it does not require users to actually click a link to know that they were interested in it, opening a world of opportunity for even more focused ads."

4 of 198 comments (clear)

  1. Hover on this comment by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Hover on this comment and it will change to something relevant.

  2. The only problem with that... by supersloshy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...is most people I know use their eyes instead of their mouse to see. Why would you need to move your mouse over to a certain part of the screen when you can just look there? Also, there's times where the mouse is just sitting in a portion of the screen idly, or sometimes people randomly move their mouse around to fulfill their OCD-ish needs (I'd know, I do that). A better alternative would simply be to see which links people end up clicking, which I'm pretty sure lots of search engines already do, and it works very well from what I've seen.

    --
    "Our country is not nearly so overrun with the bigoted as it is overrun with the broadminded." -Archbishop Fulton Sheen
  3. This isn't fair. by RabbitWho · · Score: 5, Funny

    If we weren't supposed to stroke men and women in ads then the cursor wouldn't change into the shape of a hand.

    What am I supposed to do now?

  4. Re:Better Google than Amazon... by MikeTheLiberal · · Score: 5, Funny

    This gives me incentive to shake my mouse while browsing. Although, I'll probably get ads for Parkinson's Disease if I do. :)