Google Patent Proposes $2 Fee To Skip Commercials

theodp writes "A day after Google debuted its new Google TV website, the USPTO issued U.S. Patent No. 7,806,329 to the search giant for its Targeted Video Advertising invention. Among other things, the patent proposes having viewers take 5-10 minutes to 'fill out a consumer survey and perhaps to provide additional information such as a mailing address survey before starting the program' to avoid having to watch 10 minutes of commercials. 'As another alternative,' the patent continues, 'the broadcaster may offer the users an option to pay $2 (such as through a micro-payment system, such as GBuy) to exchange for skipping all commercials.' More from the patent: 'The system may allow a user to skip all of the promotions that they want to skip, but may also require the user to fully watch at least four promotions before the program will continue. Likewise, the system may require the user to follow activities that generate a certain amount of advertising revenue or advertising points (e.g., that may correspond directly or indirectly to advertising revenues) before the program will continue.'"

Comments

Re:Before everyone gets crazy...

[mark-t]

Right.... until they start adding commercials to books as electronic readers start becoming more mainstream. You won't be able to turn the page until you sit through this 15 second commercial that the publisher figures might interest you based on the content of the book.

Re:Well, there goes my "Fast Forward" button

[mikael_j]

My freedom is in the form of pirated TV shows and movies, if you won't let me pay for and download them (I'm in Sweden and the choices for US TV shows are pretty much nill) legally then I'll just get them for free without commercials. I'm not waiting several months just for the privilege of commercials and subtitles made by some college student who doesn't understand what he or she is translating...

Re:Greed

[TheGratefulNet]

I'm over 40 and have not been to a movie theater in probably 5 years. maybe even more.

I would not even weep if all the movie 'theaters' went out of business tomorrow.

when businesses get that greedy and evil, the sooner they fade away the better.

the unpleasantness of being in the theater and being overcharged at every step turns me off so I choose not to go there.

I rent movies at home all the time. 1000% better experience. the fact that my screen is 32" wide does not bother me in the least! any movie that -needs- a big scream and jet plane level sound is too weak on its content to hold my interest for very long, anyway. being in the comfort of home trumps all 'benefits' of what the theaters give.

let this model die. it had a good run but its not needed anymore.