Google Patents "Scroogling"

theodp writes "In Microsoft's eyes, the idea of scanning Gmail so advertisers can bid on access to those suffering from breast cancer, bi-polar disorder, depression, and panic anxiety, deserves no kudos. The USPTO, on the other hand, feels it deserves a patent. GeekWire reports that Google has been awarded a patent on "Scroogling", aka its system and method for targeting information based on message content in a reply. Google takes some jabs at Microsoft in the diagrams accompanying the patent, including one implying that MS-Access and Excel files pose security risks, and another that suggests alternatives to Access."

Comments

I miss Scroogle :(

[tapspace]

I miss Scroogle, even if the guy behind it was a little crazy. Hell, I'm a little crazy! Startpage just isn't the same (although, I generally use DuckDuckGo, and I encourage everyone to do so).

Re:I miss Scroogle :(

[rtb61]

Both Google and the USPTO are officially insane. Can anyone see where the patent wildly crosses the the line? Whilst the GMail user has agreed to have the privacy reamed the other person or persons at the end of the email or those who replay to a GMail address have not, thus an extreme invasion of privacy. This would be akin to the patents office granting the US postal service a patent for the ability to scan and read al mail that passes through it's service on the claim that buying a stamp means you agreed to all the terms and conditions of service of the US postal service.

There is always another party to that email, so at which point does the sender own the rights to privacy and at which point does the receiver take over that right or can it be legally implied that both own the right to that privacy and both must agreed to have it reamed prior to any company being allowed to do it.

Especially consider this on the reply, fuck Google, just because I send an email to a GMail address does absolutely not mean, I gave them the right to have my privacy reamed by the to their greedy and perverted little heart's content.

Re:I miss Scroogle :(

[jrumney]

Patents are, and should be, about technical issues only, legality and ethics does not enter into the decision over whether something is patentable.

Re:I miss Scroogle :(

[tlhIngan]

Both Google and the USPTO are officially insane. Can anyone see where the patent wildly crosses the the line? Whilst the GMail user has agreed to have the privacy reamed the other person or persons at the end of the email or those who replay to a GMail address have not, thus an extreme invasion of privacy. This would be akin to the patents office granting the US postal service a patent for the ability to scan and read al mail that passes through it's service on the claim that buying a stamp means you agreed to all the terms and conditions of service of the US postal service.

There is always another party to that email, so at which point does the sender own the rights to privacy and at which point does the receiver take over that right or can it be legally implied that both own the right to that privacy and both must agreed to have it reamed prior to any company being allowed to do it.

Especially consider this on the reply, fuck Google, just because I send an email to a GMail address does absolutely not mean, I gave them the right to have my privacy reamed by the to their greedy and perverted little heart's content.

Technically, email is like sending postcards - it's complete;y open for anyone to read. (Although few do because who has the time to really read every single postcard sent through the mail? The NSA, perhaps).

Email has no technical privacy - it never has. Even in the beginning it was typically available to anyone who had access to the system it's on (back when people logged onto a shell account to retrieve their mail, sysadmins would have free reign over the entire firesystem).

If you wanted privacy, use encryption - it's one of the initial uses of PGP - for encrypting email!

And you're technically correct - in fact there's a class action over this by non-Google users finding that they're being profiled and tracked because they interact with GMail users and even worse, they aren't covered by any of Google's privacy policies because they never agreed to them.

Re:I miss Scroogle :(

[tapspace]

If you wanted privacy, use encryption - it's one of the initial uses of PGP - for encrypting email!

Heh, if only the gubmint would let anyone open an unmolested secure email service.

Re:I miss Scroogle :(

[nmb3000]

Patents are, and should be, about technical issues only

Well, I'd have to say this fails on those merits as well. I fail to see how "show an advertisement based on message content" is either inventive or non-obvious to an expert in the field.

Oh, but they have a "computing device" and a "cloud". APPROVED.

Re:I miss Scroogle :(

[swillden]

Out of curiosity, what is your position on the non-advertising content suggestions mentioned in the patent? For example, if someone e-mails an address to a Gmail user, does it constitute reaming of the sender's privacy for Google's systems to recognize that it's an address and to offer the user a map?

What about other sorts of automated analysis not mentioned in the patent? For example, content analysis for automatic classification, such as the priority inbox feature which sorts e-mail into "important" and "everything else" categories, or the new inbox that optionally sorts e-mail into "primary", "social", "promotions", "updates" and "forums" categories, presented on different tabs. Is that reaming of the sender's privacy, too? The content analysis seems like it would be quite similar in procedure, just a different application. Probably a bit more personalized than the advertising analysis, actually.

While I'm at it, what about automated content analysis for spam filtering and virus detection? Is that also privacy reaming?

I'm curious where you draw the line, and on what basis. Personally, I don't see any sort of automated analysis whose results are presented only to the recipient of the e-mail as a breach of privacy of the sender, who sent the information to the recipient. I draw the line based on who sees the information, both original and the results of the analysis, and especially on what information made available to third parties can be tied to the people/accounts from which it originated or to which it is related. On that basis, I don't see any privacy issues with Gmail.

But others see things differently, so I'd like to understand what your criteria are.

(Disclaimer: I work for Google, though the above represents only my personal opinion, not any sort of company policy statement. For that matter, I held the same opinion before I began working for Google, so I can safely say that my employment has not altered it.)

Re:I miss Scroogle :(

[lxs]

Things are looking up for my Automated Prisoner to Burger Converter.

Re:I miss Scroogle :(

[Anonymous Coward]

when they analyze your data so that they can sell you to advertisers, remember with google you are their product! their method is to build a profile of you based on your communications that they can sell to advertisers and target you for advertising, this is not simply some filtering system like a spam filter, it is a system to catalog every bit of information about you to be able to understand who you are, what you do, where you go, what interests you have and who you communicate with so they can sell you for more effective advertising.

Re:I miss Scroogle :(

[swillden]

when they analyze your data so that they can sell you to advertisers

I think the wording of this statement is misleading. It implies that some information about you is being sent to advertisers, which is not the case.

their method is to build a profile of you based on your communications that they can sell to advertisers

And again, this is not the case. Google doesn't sell user profiles to advertisers.

this is not simply some filtering system like a spam filter, it is a system to catalog every bit of information about you to be able to understand who you are, what you do, where you go, what interests you have and who you communicate with so they can show you more effective advertising.

I changed the bolded words in your statement, to make it more accurate. Yes, Google's intent is to understand you in some depth, in order to both provide you with better services, and to show you advertising that is relevant to your interests.

Of course, if you don't want targeted advertising from Google, you're free to opt out, even while still receiving the free services.

Does this corrected understanding of what Google does and doesn't do change anything for you? Based on the line that I described in my previous post (GP to this one), it makes all the difference to me. If that's not where you draw the line, I pose the same question to you that I posed to rtb61: Where do you draw the line? Is analysis for the purpose of targeted advertising different from analysis for spam filtering or automatic categorization, and, if so, why? Is it just a distaste for advertising driving your attitude, or is there actually some privacy consideration that I'm missing?

Re:I miss Scroogle :(

[swillden]

Oh, one more comment: I should also mention in the interest of full disclosure that I find targeted advertising to be a good thing. I don't particularly like ads, and I'd rather not see them at all, but given that advertising is the model that pays for pretty much all of the web content I enjoy, since I have to see ads I'd much rather see ads about things that actually interest me.

This was driven home a couple of days ago when I was semi-forced to watch TV for a few hours, during the afternoon. One particular sequence of commercials contained (1) an ad for a legal firm specializing in getting social security disability benefits for people, (2) an ad for catheters, with women gushing about how compact and easy to carry and insert they were and (3) an ad for some medication for some gynecological disorder, prompted me to turn to my colleague who was sitting nearby and point out that I really like targeted advertising. That sequence was just the final straw, too, after many other ads that I found not just uninteresting but distasteful.

Show me ads for hiking shoes, bicycle gear, boats, guns, gadgets, etc. -- stuff that I might actually want to know about and may even want to buy, thank you very much.

Re:I miss Scroogle :(

[Anonymous Coward]

If your definition of "read" includes "being processed by a computer" then any email server that accepts an email from you must necessarily read your email. If your definition of "read" does not include "being processed by a computer", then Google is in fact not reading your email. Either way, you are completely misunderstanding what this story is about and what the privacy implications are.

In other words: name even a single way in which your privacy is being violated by there being relevant ads in your GMail or in someone else's GMail? The Google data center that decided which ad to show you already has your email, so Google is not getting any additional information from you when it selects or shows this ad to you. Advertisers don't get to see your email and they don't get to know who you are, so there is no information being leaked about you to third parties.

You might not like Google having your email in the first place when you send email to someone on GMail, but that is how email works. If you send an email to a server, that server has your email. That's what email is! In any case, since you aren't being shown ads when yous end email to GMail users, that concern would have absolutely nothing to do with being shown ads on GMail, which is what this Slashdot story is about.

What the hell is the problem?

Re:I miss Scroogle :(

[LordLucless]

Whilst the GMail user has agreed to have the privacy reamed the other person or persons at the end of the email or those who replay to a GMail address have not, thus an extreme invasion of privacy.

If you send an email to gmail.com, gmail.com can read it. Is this really a big surprise in a technical forum? In fact, gmail.com must be able to read the email in order to deliver it to the right mailbox. It must be able to read the body of the email if you want it to perform spam detection. It's the same for pretty much every domain, as almost everyone uses some form of spam detection.

Only the naive or the wilfully ignorant could claim that they didn't expect Google to be able to read emails sent to their servers (or Microsoft/Hotmail, Yahoo, etc)

so at which point does the sender own the rights to privacy

Until they voluntarily transmit it onto another computer system.

Especially consider this on the reply, fuck Google, just because I send an email to a GMail address does absolutely not mean, I gave them the right to have my privacy reamed by the to their greedy and perverted little heart's content.

Yes, yes it does. If you don't sending your emails to Google, don't send your emails to Google. If you want to use their services (including communicating with their account holders), you abide by their conditions.

Re:I miss Scroogle :(

[hairyfeet]

Meh I use Bing, I figure if somebody is gonna make money off my searches the least they can do is give me a slice and all those $5 Amazon gift cards are great for picking up the little adapters and odds and ends i'm always needing round the shop. Plus I like their image search better than Google.

As for TFA this just shows that the USPTO has basically become a rubber stamp for the corps, frankly the whole copyrights and patents system need to be tossed out and overhauled, all it does now is make rich old white guys ever richer while making minefields for everybody else.

Re:I miss Scroogle :(

[Aryden]

bullshit, legal decisions like this, as much as I despise them, should be about law and not ethics. Your personal code of conduct and morality is not MY personal code of conduct and morality. The same goes with a patent clerk and someone applying for a patent. The moral issue should be taken up by the people effected and seek damages from the offending party. Or, you could just refuse to use google services.

Re:I miss Scroogle :(

[Antonovich]

Get over it dude. If people, other than privacy nerds, were remotely concerned about this then we'd get Yahoo/MS/etc. promoting some sort of auto-reply system that sent back a "Sorry, the email service you have sent this email from scans replies for advertising purposes and, as such, is a danger to my privacy. Please send this email from an email service that does not scan my emails and I will reply to your message". Almost all email services, free or not, probably provide for this very easily. Then Gmail would then be faced with some hard choices... or maybe they wouldn't because no one cares. That's the problem here - almost no one who is not on /. cares. What is stopping you from doing this again and starting the movement?

NOTHING is forcing you to use Gmail, either to send from or to. There are literally thousands of free email providers and it is NOTHING like the postal service in that way.

Re:I miss Scroogle :(

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the post office stores OCRed sender and receiver information. It's called a 'mail cover', and since 2001 it's stored for every letter indefinitely.

Re:I miss Scroogle :(

[gnasher719]

Patents are, and should be, about technical issues only, legality and ethics does not enter into the decision over whether something is patentable.

Ethics possibly not, but a patent has to be for a useful invention, and if what the patent enables me to do was illegal, then I could never legally do it, so the invention wouldn't be useful and couldn't be patented.

Re:I miss Scroogle :(

[gnasher719]

Technically, email is like sending postcards - it's complete;y open for anyone to read. (Although few do because who has the time to really read every single postcard sent through the mail? The NSA, perhaps).

A postcard isn't open for anyone to read. It's only open to read for the very few people who touch it while in transit from the sender to me. And I'm quite sure there is some amount of legal protection. If you stood in front of my house waiting for the postman and asked him to let you read postcards to me, I'm quite sure that would be illegal.

Re:I miss Scroogle :(

[gnasher719]

I think the wording of this statement is misleading. It implies that some information about you is being sent to advertisers, which is not the case.

But it is the case. The information is "this address passed the criteria for emails that you asked us for".

Re:I miss Scroogle :(

[Gavagai80]

As one of the probably-millions of people who buys google advertising, I'd love to know where I can find this supposed trove of personal profiles to target. It'd make my adwords a lot more effective than all this blind keyword bidding.

Re:I miss Scroogle :(

[Anonymous Coward]

My personal code of conduct is not Stalin's personal code of conduct. I am right, he was wrong. So are you. Only mentally deranged people are moral relativists. That or libertarians but I repeat myself.

Re:I miss Scroogle :(

[Joining Yet Again]

"...about law and not ethics..."

The law is a compromise between ethics and the interests of the powerful.

Re:I miss Scroogle :(

[pspahn]

Does this also include Gmail users who also use other email addresses as well? Am I still bound to the TOS if I use a non-Gmail address to email a Gmail user?

Re:I miss Scroogle :(

[21mhz]

That's funny, but PGP was designed with the assumption that communications and email storage can easily be snooped on. It's an end-to-end scheme, and so is S/MIME. The security of both is as good as the encryption algorithm and your and your peers' procedures for key management and exchange.

If a government (to me, the U.S. government agencies are agents of a foreign state) wants the contents, they need to go after you, rather than installing blanket wiretaps at your service providers and silencing their staff with a secret gag order.

Re:I miss Scroogle :(

[Anonymous Coward]

Recipient can freely show your mail to anyone else - unless he's your doctor/lawyer/other with contractual obligation to keep your conversations private. You generally have no say about his use of it.

If he wants to show it to Google per his contract with GMail - he can, and your only recourse is to tell him to stop using GMail.

Re:I miss Scroogle :(

[rtb61]

Listen up and listen up good. There are plenty of things I do that I prefer not to do and screw you if you think I just have to suck it up with out doing what ever I can do to change it and if I bloody wish, spend the rest of my life continuing to attempt to change it. I'll send email to a GMail address but make not mistake I will spend the rest of my life opposing the idea that they are entitled to read and analyse anything beyond the addressing. Personally I would like to see a new email encryption standard, one that is the global default and that absolutely anyone can decrypt with a simple press of a button. The only proviso being, that only the intended recipient is by law entitled to press that button and decipher the content, if anybody else does so they have committed a computer crime and will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law (maybe add a warning in when they press the decipher button, so two button presses ;P).

Re:I miss Scroogle :(

[jimshatt]

Okay, so you like interest-based ads. I can see that, I really can. What I'm afraid of, though, is that you with your interest and I with mine get presented a different internet. Google probably sorts your search results differently than mine, so you'll visit different sites than I do, even though our search terms are the same.
Maybe this isn't a big deal. Your perception of the world is different than mine, so why wouldn't you visit a different internet than I do? But where do you draw the line? (right back at ya :) )
Also, my interests are shaped based on what I see and read on the internet (as well as IRL of course), but if only pages/search results based on my current interests are ever presented, can I ever widen my horizon? I'm not a static set of properties.

Okay, so it probably isn't this bad yet, but I'm a little worried about where this is going.
Thanks in any case for your view on this.

Re:I miss Scroogle :(

[VortexCortex]

I fail to see how "show an advertisement based on message content" is either inventive or non-obvious to an expert in the field.

Apparently you've not studied quantum mechanics. Some interpretation of quantum mechanics state that everything that can happen does. So, much like we have the EM field and Higgs field, etc. and interactions between them make up reality, there is an infinite number of Universes that could have emerged from the big bang with all sorts of different parameters for all sorts of fields. It's widely known that the standard model is a very good approximation, but still a bit incomplete.

Much like there are effects that are visible in the quantum level but not so much at the macro scale, there are other effects that could be near impossible to detect through quantum physics, and rely on macroscopic observations. We're witnessing such an effect. It's widely known that some particles interact only very weakly with the other fields. You and I are like neutrinos, but many experts -- especially those of the PTO -- are highly influenced by the reality distortion field.

Re:I miss Scroogle :(

[Anonymous Coward]

I now have a patent on extracting money from people and banks by pointing guns at them.

The method is illegal in many jurisdictions, and I plan on obeying the law here.

But I will extract my licencing fees from all other robbers. First those who got caught, they are easy to find. Then I'll be able to pay my enforcers to collect from the rest . . .

Re:I miss Scroogle :(

[Windwraith]

Unfortunately DDG's results are pretty terrible. I find it pretty much unusable, specially because it tends to turn your search for a software package with a "common" name, to only turn out results from the common name (IE try to look for Lua and you get sites that use the Portuguese word for moon), whereas google will usually link to Lua's official site.

Re:I miss Scroogle :(

[Deviate_X]

... would be akin to the patents office granting the US postal service a patent for the ability to scan and read al mail that passes through it's service on the claim that buying a stamp means you agreed to all the terms and conditions of service of the US postal service.

This is actually a solid business idea, extending what Google does with email to Snail mail. Just think about how much this could improve targeted mail (junk mail) by sharing keywords in your mail with advertisers. All that would be needed is technology to scan through paper envelopes.

Re:I miss Scroogle :(

[donaldm]

Email has no technical privacy - it never has. Even in the beginning it was typically available to anyone who had access to the system it's on (back when people logged onto a shell account to retrieve their mail, sysadmins would have free reign over the entire firesystem).

System Admins still have full access to all file-systems under their control so you have to hope that they have enough integrity not to abuse their privilege. it is possible for a rogue System Admin to write filters to extract compromising email however if they are caught doing this then they can face a prison sentence and/or a hefty fine.

Actually pretty much all outgoing and incoming business or corporate email is actually read by virus protection software no matter if the mail server runs a Microsoft, Unix or Linux OS. The exception would be pass through mail although some companies like their virus protection software to vet this as well which can actually land the over enthusiastic company in hot water since this can be construed as reading and possibly blocking mail not destined for the said companies mail server(s).

Re:I miss Scroogle :(

[aaaaaaargh!]

I don't see any sort of automated analysis whose results are presented only to the recipient of the e-mail as a breach of privacy of the sender, who sent the information to the recipient.

But the information is also shared with the NSA and law enforcement agencies. We know that already. It could (and likely will) be used for proactive punishment of thought crimes.

Moreover, what you call "content analysis" is also a technical term from the intersection of corpus linguistics and psychology. Just by analysing text you can obtain a complete and fairly accurate personality profile of a person. Try out for example LIWC and see for yourself.

It's not harmless technology by any measure, it's a pretty big deal.

Re:I miss Scroogle :(

[JAlexoi]

I fail to see how "show an advertisement based on message content" is either inventive or non-obvious to an expert in the field.

And who said that they patented exactly that?

Re:I miss Scroogle :(

[JAlexoi]

Yet Google, in this case, is the postman.

Re:I miss Scroogle :(

[JAlexoi]

Yes... Which are male, single, under 30 interested in cars.
Please note, that private information is only the information that can personally identify you. Unless you happen to live in a country/city that has you are the only person fitting that profile, you have no basis to claim that your private information is sold.

Re:I miss Scroogle :(

[JAlexoi]

In short - Google offers no more information than you can't already gather from other sources, concerning low volume demographics.
Consider that you are targeting a DnD players in Boulder(CO), going through Google is the least efficient tools that you could use to get personal details about your target group.
Targeting any group larger than that is pretty much useless and you can't practically gather any valuable personal information.

Re:I miss Scroogle :(

[JAlexoi]

Actually that information will help greatly in sorting the emails. Some people I'm in contact with routinely send me stupid email and happen to be business associates. I do not want to go through their cupcake bake-off blabber, to see that they have sent me estimates for projects.

Re:I miss Scroogle :(

[JAlexoi]

NSA provides no services. You can't sue NSA and they pretend that it does not even exist!

Re:I miss Scroogle :(

[JAlexoi]

Well... If you signed up for GMail, then why are you complaining? Google is not hiding their services in any way, if you want it you can sidestep Google.

Re:I miss Scroogle :(

[thaylin]

How is that different for email. None anyone can read your email, just people with access to your connection/servers.

Re:I miss Scroogle :(

[drinkypoo]

Email has no technical privacy - it never has. Even in the beginning it was typically available to anyone who had access to the system it's on (back when people logged onto a shell account to retrieve their mail, sysadmins would have free reign over the entire firesystem).

Back when people typically logged onto a shell account to retrieve their mail, sysadmins didn't even have to go to their homedir to snoop on them, because users had their own mbox file in the spool dir.

However, they didn't have free reign over the filesystem. They either had free rein across it, or they reigned over it. HTH.

Re:I miss Scroogle :(

[LordLucless]

Listen up and listen up good. There are plenty of things I do that I prefer not to do and screw you if you think I just have to suck it up with out doing what ever I can do to change it and if I bloody wish, spend the rest of my life continuing to attempt to change it.

Yep. You give those windmills what for, Quixote.

Re:I miss Scroogle :(

[TheSkepticalOptimist]

Patents have nothing to do with morality or otherwise. Personally I would rather Google have this patent, then say, some patent troll company that will sell the patent to the highest bidder, say, some Chinese state run company.

Also I can't stand how much FUD is said about Gmail and its lack of "privacy". No HUMAN has ever read your email, ever, it doesn't happen. Google uses cold impersonal computers and algorithms to quickly scan text for keywords and then suggests ads that are relevant because they have found that if you are emailing a buddy about a new car, you might be more interested in ads about cars rather than ads about viagra.

Everybody knows the deal with Gmail, and anybody who responds to a Gmail user knows the deal. People do not have to respond to any email they don't want to.

Also to assume that no other online service is scanning your emails is juvenile and naive, and their motives are far more an affront to privacy than simply deciding what ad to display as you enjoy a free service. If you want to be private, get off the fucking web!

Re:I miss Scroogle :(

[gstoddart]

There is always another party to that email, so at which point does the sender own the rights to privacy and at which point does the receiver take over that right

Sadly, we live in a world where implicit/click-through EULAs have been upheld in court.

Which means there's likely a clause which says "by using this service (which includes sending to our users) ..."

This will be true of pretty much any organization ... once the email hits their servers, they own that copy of it. Hell, if you sent me email at work, my company owns those servers and you have no expectation of privacy as well -- because like every company, they basically say they retain the right to access emails.

The problem isn't with Google (though I'm not defending them), it's with privacy laws. As long as governments decide that business models are corporate profits trump privacy, and the expectation is people want to monetize you, then there will always be be this kind of thing.

just because I send an email to a GMail address does absolutely not mean, I gave them the right to have my privacy reamed

Except, from a strictly legal perspective, you have, even if you didn't explicitly say so -- once again, that's EULAs.

And, I can guarantee you, Yahoo, Microsoft, and lots of other entities do this.

The only way you are ever going to have 100% privacy in email is if you own and host your own server, and everything is sent encrypted. And even then, if the government themselves wanted to know, they could compel you.

So what needs to happen is improvements to privacy laws. And quite frankly, I don't see a lot of governments giving a damn about that, because they're more worried about surveillance. And if they're exploiting the fact that Google can look at your email to do advertising (which they are), they can also use that to see the contents of your email if they wish.

Seriously, blame your lawmakers -- they are the ones who set this scenario up and passed the laws that allow this to happen (or failed to pass laws that prevent it).

Re:I miss Scroogle :(

[blackiner]

The recipient and sender addresses are still publicly readable, though. Sure, they could just tap the internet line itself, but it is more fun to thug it up and threaten people. Then they install logging software onto the servers themselves gives them a nice easy way to build massive graphs of who is talking to whom. Furthermore, they can log all the encrypted emails and, if they ever suspect some individual person, attempt to hack into the persons computers to get their public/private keys. Also, they probably log IP addresses too, to help physically identify individuals. There is quite a bit they can do without reading the contents of the emails.

Re:I miss Scroogle :(

[rtb61]

And you just learn to suck it on up h**%#r. To each their own, I know which I rather be.

Re:I miss Scroogle :(

[faffod]

How about a compromise (that should get both sides to down vote me to oblivion...) Patent law should be about technical merits. Tort law covers ethics. It is ok to own a patent on "insert some horrible and amoral process here", but it is illegal to use it. This is the legal equivalent to breaking a function into two separate functions, each one serves a purpose and is not overly obfuscated. We just have to remember to call both functions.

Re:I miss Scroogle :(

[tapspace]

DDG's problem seems to be that it only shows the top link for a given domain in the main search results. It's a terrible design, I'll admit.

Re:I miss Scroogle :(

[Mashdar]

But I read the patent title!

Re:I miss Scroogle :(

[lightBearer]

Wrong. On an individual scale, it's called "stalking". On a grand scale, it's called surveillance.

Re:I miss Scroogle :(

[kermidge]

No.

The fact that email is sent _en clair_ over the wires is not an argument for it being open. The reason is simple: unlike a postcard where one need only look at it, to read someone's email somebody has to find it and open it up with a text viewer, which is a physical act - and this act is analogous to opening an envelope. Until it's opened all that's seen is a filename or header, which is akin to the address on the outside of an envelope.

Why this is so hard for so many to see is beyond me, unless it's because rather than having to stop and think it's easier to repeat "what everyone knows to be so."

Re:I miss Scroogle :(

[kermidge]

Oh, and on those Google patents? They're bullshit. Now, thanks to the bright lights at the patent office, patented bullshit, just like so many of the others that are obvious, prior art, or "because computer|Internet|cloud".

Re:I miss Scroogle :(

[kqs]

If you send me a letter, I am allowed to show it to anyone I want. I can even hire a service to open my mail, sort it, and toss the junk. Is that illegal? Should you be able to prevent me from doing that?

If you send an email to my gmail address, guess what happens? Guess who I authorized to read and sort MY mail, for the cost of some targeted ads?

Please stop trying to control what I can do with MY email that people sent to me. I always hear that the government is the one trying to take our rights, but that's nothing compared to well-meaning idiots. Once your message enters the mailbox in front of my house or the mailbox in my mail provider, you keep your grubby hands outta my letters.

Re:I miss Scroogle :(

[rtb61]

Somehow you bring to mind the kind of douche nozzles that thinks it's appropriate publish nude photo's that their ex-girlfriends sent them. Once it is in you grubby little mitts, does not mean you can do what ever the hell you fell like doing with it.

Re:I miss Scroogle :(

[arctother]

Me too! It is a bit hilarious that Google is obviously still trying to quash scroogle years later by trademarking the name, as if they would like to erase it from history. Instead, everytime I hear the word I think of scroogle, and wonder if there is a good way to bring something like that back. I use DuckDuckGo (after trying many of the others like PrivateLee, etc.) but I'm really not happy with it. Their search engine disregards a lot of standard searching techniques. For instance, if I search for something "in quotes" they will return the same words both in and outside of the phrase, thus rendering the results useless. What I would like to see is a browser/scraper that sits on my own computer (not the cloud or a web server) so I can have complete control over it, set the way results are shown, etc. as I see fit. It would of course have to get results by scraping google, bing, etc.

Re:I miss Scroogle :(

[tapspace]

What I would like to see is a browser/scraper that sits on my own computer (not the cloud or a web server) so I can have complete control over it

This is really clever. The era of ethical computing services is yet upon its dawn. Find a way to monetize the idea and it just might make you rich. Remember, people said there was no (ethical) way to monetize search when google was getting started. They were (right) wrong!

Technically speaking, there's no reason all the end clients need to scape the web. The scraper could be completely centralized, but you'd run searches against a local database which is downloaded every couple days. All web searches could be performed locally. The NSA is making cheap storage work for them, maybe we should too :)

The pages referenced in the summary

[loosescrews]

The one implying that MS-Access and Excel files pose security risks: http://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/23/218/085/18.pdf

The one that suggests alternatives to Access: http://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/23/218/085/19.pdf

Re:The pages referenced in the summary

[jerquiaga]

Those show nothing of the sort. Wish someone would actually read the materials before writing the summary.

Re:The pages referenced in the summary

[Shompol]

Thank you. Don't see anything about security risks in the first link. Both links advertise MS Access, which is a joke by itself.

Re:The pages referenced in the summary

[swillden]

Those show nothing of the sort. Wish someone would actually read the materials before writing the summary.

Well, the second image does show ads for Filemaker and Peoplesoft, sandwiched between ads for help with learning or using Access. The Filemaker ad specifically positions it as an alternative to Access, and it can be assumed that the Peoplesoft ad is also offering an alternative, though I don't really see Access and Peoplesoft as competitors.

The first image is an example e-mail that actually suggests that Excel and Access files are so valuable to the business that they should be protected from loss by getting them backed up to a network drive, with no implication that the files pose security risks, so the summary's characterization of that is completely off-base.

Still giving out bad patents, I see.

[RightSaidFred99]

There's nothing novel about this, it's already been done for a long time in various ways. It's just another "do something common and obvious...in email!" patent.

Re:Still giving out bad patents, I see.

[Kaenneth]

Do Evil ... On A Computer.

Re:Still giving out bad patents, I see.

[RightSaidFred99]

Correct. It's cool how you know all about subtle misplaced sarcasm and whatnot. Whoohoo!

uh-oh

[Gravis Zero]

sounds like Microsoft just got scroogled.

Re:uh-oh

[ketomax]

Who wants to patent Microsucks?

Patent novelty?

[chrismcb]

How is this remotely patentable? It is just taking some content, and presenting an ad based on the content (and keywords in the content). What does it mater that the content is a reply vs a web page vs anything else?
Ohhh "determining reply content associated with the reply" If only three was some standard way to determine the content of an email. What is novel about this? Once you have a system to provide an ad based on keywords, what does it matter if you pull keywords from a reply, or from something else?

Re:Patent novelty?

[Intropy]

This comes up every time a patent gets mentioned on Slashdot. They did not patent the concept of targeting ads based on content. They patented a particular method for doing that.

Re:Patent novelty?

[chrismcb]

They did not patent the concept of targeting ads based on content. They patented a particular method for doing that.

And their particular method is different from the other methods how? Reading the patent, about the only thing that is different is that they use the reply as the content.
The method involves using keywords from the content. Applying some sort of weighting that meets a threshold, and a few other things. How does this method differ from a method to introduce advertising based on other content?
Surely figuring out the reply isn't novel. Surely looking for keywords isn't novel. Surely weighting isn't novel. There is some stuff in there related to email and databases, but the only thing that really matters is keywords and weighting and replies. I don't see how this is novel, or different than any other content based syste,

Patent on 'Scroogling'?

[tpstigers]

I would have just assumed someone in the porn industry already owned that one.

I prefer Pi billion dollar spectrum bid

[raymorris]

Poking at Microsoft is always fun, but when their competitors were doing huge, high pressure deals worth billions and Google bid $3.1415 billion (pi billion) that was the best, I think.

With their reputation for April Fool's day prank launches, launching Gmail on April fool's was good too.

So...

[Doh!]

It has come to this.

so, is Google's CFO the Chief Ferengi Officer?

[Fubari]

True... both google & patent office are amoral if anything, but certainly not insane - this will be quite profitable for google.
From a non-patent point of view, this email thing seriously creeps me out.
I wonder if the Google CFO's business card says "Chief Ferengi Officer".
*shrug* That is probably true for any large company.

So anyway... now that lavabit is gone, what is a good way to go for private email ?

Patents are, and should be, about technical issues only, legality and ethics does not enter into the decision over whether something is patentable.

Re:I want to switch

[Aryden]

wont matter, any email you send into the US can be searched, cataloged and perused.

Better than the one-click

[readin]

At least one could imagine a significant potential benefit for this (even if outweighed by the negatives), and it required a bit of innovation. The one-click purchase (where you don't get a confirmation) always seemed crazy to me - like inventing an automobile without brakes so that it always has to be coasted to a stop.

The real reason for the patent.

[ttucker]

They are probably patenting Scroogling so that they can start doing it to people themselves.

Ridicules Article

[MikeHenken]

You have got to be kidding me. Are you such an apologetic fanboy that you believe Google's focus is helping people with cancer and disorders? If someone did have breast cancer, they would mostly see targeted spam ads telling them of a magic cure for 9.99.

Re:Ridicules Article

[cgimusic]

What? You really think the article portrayed the ability to target ads to those with medical conditions in a positive way? That sure as hell isn't how I read it.

Re:It sounds like you're *thinking* about this so.

[Fubari]

You raise some good points. I don't use Facebook because I don't like being a product. I make a modest effort to avoid web tracking (firefox w/collusion, request policy, noscript). I run bleachbit once a month or so.

The email thing bothers me because I don't see that I have much control over it.

A side effect of my thinking about this is I end up being depressed about where things are going.
Just for fun, let me add an oprtion or two to your well-reasoned choices:
[_] Check this for a smart phone that doesn't require linking with an "adword-enabled" email account (maybe I need to return to iphone).
[_] Check this for an option to opt out with pay-for-service email.


And just for fun, let's look a step or two further down the road:
[_] Check this for HR+ Candidate Profile to receive a summary Adword Profile of your possible new hire(s), including hobby and special interest profiles and daily web-surfing profiles (time range + web sites).
[_] Check this for Law Enforcement Deluxe Monitoring to receive push notification
[_] Check this for Tax Audit Assist to correlate email geocoding with our sophisticated content analysis and find anomalies.

I can see how this could be a storyline from StarTrek ("Yes, on Fernginar we USED to believe in privacy. But then we realized that privacy was Unprofitable!")
But aren't talking about some stupid story.

...what's the base problem here? Discarding the notion that "someone" is reading your e-mail (which obviously isn't the case) what's the actual objection?

Are you sure nobody is reading peoples emails?
In the data analysis I work with, people look at overall statistical measures and then drill down into various aspects of the data until they're looking at raw data points (e.g. original email text in this case).
*shrug*
But reading my email text isn't what bothers me quite so much as having basically a complete audit log of everyone's online activity to slice & dice. Huh. Maybe the future is already here and I'm worrying about things I can't control.

Given: A private e-mail to an actual physical "girl." A perl script that scans both sent and received e-mail for keywords A user that wants free e-mail

I see a result where instead of the gmail account holder getting adds for: Trackable dog collars, snail bait, Lorcaserin, insurance quotes, mega-muscle-growth supplements

He might instead get ads. for: Newegg computer components, engagement rings, restaurant two-fers, concert tickets

This feels like a win. If the scanning were optional and there was pair of radio buttons

[_] Check this for random useless ads. [_] Check this for useful adds derived from keyword scans of your e-mail

I would check the box on the bottom. Would you? Why/Not?

I'd prefer to check the box that says
[_] Don't be Big Brother, don't track everything I do. I'll even pay extra to not be counted. (And yeah, I understand why that choice doesn't explicitly appear anywhere in the world we live in.)

Given all of that, if advertisements are unavoidable I'd prefer random advertisements that are totally untargeted to who I am and what I do. I know, I know, that is "unprofitable" for the service providers and merchants.

I'd rather...

[DiEx-15]

...be Scroogled than Balmered any day.

Re:It sounds like you're *thinking* about this so.

[Rato Ruter]

Given all of that, if advertisements are unavoidable I'd prefer random advertisements that are totally untargeted to who I am and what I do. I know, I know, that is "unprofitable" for the service providers and merchants.

You really woud rather have a penis enlargement ad, nsfw banner or pyramid scheme ad instead of whatever it is you get? You know that no matter how good the offer they're showing you are not required to click, or spend money, on it, don't you?