Slashdot Mirror
Facebook Patents Inferring Income of Users
theodp writes "Among the patents granted to Facebook this week by the USPTO is one for Inferring Household Income for Users of a Social Networking System. 'For example,' Facebook explains, 'an assumption might be made about a user that reads CNN.com and nytimes.com every day that the user is in a higher income bracket than another user that only reads TMZ.com and PerezHilton.com on the theory that a user who reads newspapers might be assumed to make more money than a user who only reads celebrity gossip blogs.' Advertisements such as those for travel packages, cars, and home mortgages, Facebook adds, 'are targeted to users based on income bracket,' which might also be inferred by 'gathering and analyzing different types of information about a user's geographic location.' Hey, what could go wrong?"
They do know everyone selling data + advertising already does this, right? This is a VERY obvious use of aggregated data.
I declare Shenanigans!
Shenanigans on Facebook!
Shenanigans on the USPTO!
They are trying to scam us now and it needs to be stopped Officer Barbrady!
The patent specifically suggests using inferred income for targeting mortgage offers, which the Wikipedia article notes has been a ripe area for abuse: "Reverse redlining occurs when a lender or insurer targets minority consumers, not to deny them loans or insurance, but rather to charge them more than could be charged to a comparable majority consumer whose business is more sought after"
I can think of a couple of reasons to not go direct in this case:
1) It's possibly more expensive to advertise on CNN or NYT.
2) There's no inherent ability to "share" or "like" an ad. (yes, people do it)
Facebook adds value not only for the targeting, but for the "social" nature of it's platform.
Yes, but a typical Slashdot geek thinks that an invention has to be 100% perfect to be useful at all.
This is just another case of adding "... on a computer" or "... over wifi" to something that's already an established practice to gain a patent.
They are not patenting the concept, they are patenting a specific algorithm.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.