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Amazon Patents Deducing Religion From Gift Wrap
theodp writes "If you're the giver or recipient of presents gift-wrapped by Amazon, you may want to take a gander at U.S. Patent No. 8,060,463, granted to Amazon last month for Mining of User Event Data to Identify Users with Common Interests. Among other things, Amazon explains the invention can be used to identify recipients of gifts as Christian or Jewish based on wrapping paper. From the patent: 'The gift wrap used by such other users when purchasing gifts for this user, such as when the gift wrap evidences the user's religion (in the case of Christmas or Hanukkah gift wrap, for example.)'"
... because no Jew would ever buy presents for their Christian friends, or vice-versa...
Shouldn't that be the religion of the receiver ?
(Unless it is really unimaginable for Amazon that people give presents across religious and ethnical boundaries.)
I can't be the only one who finds the idea of patents for " Mining of User... Data to Identify User[s]" a bit unnerving....
Of course, I'm one of the apparent minority who tend to adhere to the concept that privacy is still a right.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
... you can really patent something that basically reads, "Using a feature to help in set classification"?
About ready to say scrap the entire patent system - at least when it comes to software. It's not like it protects the actual inventors any more at all.
Check your premises.
Clearly, deducing that somebody is Jewish because they bought Hanukkah wrapping paper is a brilliant invention worthy of the full protective power of the United States government and international intellectual property treaties. How else is America going to survive in the information age?
Let me restate: figuring out that somebody is Jewish because they bought wrapping paper with Jewish stars on it IS STEALING. You wouldn't steal a car or a DVD, would you?
. . . "Based on the Sending of Kinky Sexual Gifts to Non-spousal Persons."
" . . . hmmm . . . let's see what the mayor is sending to other females besides his wife . . . "
There's plenty more gold to be monetized in that Amazon mine.
Ordered copies of "Armed Insurrections for Dummies" . . . ? "Cooking Crack in Your Bathtub for Fun and Profit" . . . ?
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Determining religion by presence or absence of circumcision.
Determining gender by presence or lack of a penis.
Determining age by birth date.
Determining quantity by how many of an item is present.
and my favorite...
Determining the failure of the US patent system by filing stupid patents.
I hear frogs like green. You must be a frog.
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.