Yesterday I ran across a stunning article “Microsoft Patents May Hint At The Future Of Windows” (here it is: http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=201001485 ). The most interesting part of it says:
In two patent applications filed this month, Microsoft may be foreshadowing future Windows features, including updates to the taskbar and ad-supported versions.The first patent application, filed on July 5, details advertising software that uses applications and data on a computer, rather than the Web, to provide context for and trigger advertising. “Web-based advertising is limited to targeting based on a user’s interaction with a webpage or search application in communication with a portal or search engine,” the patent application notes.
Overall, the software is like adware that figures out what ads to display based on files on the hard drive and what’s being displayed on the screen at a given moment. The advertising software, which could be part of the operating system, a standalone app, or an application feature, would use information gleaned from documents, music, computer status messages, and e-mails as context for ads. However, the software could conceivably gather information on every file on a user’s hard drive and send it to advertisers, and the application does little to assuage security and privacy concerns.
Then my friends found United States Patent Application #20070157227 for “Advertising services architecture” (see: http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=“20070157227”.PGNR.&OS=DN/20070157227&RS=DN/20070157227 ).
The USPA gives the background and the summary for the new Windows framework. Note: the underlining is mine - GY
BACKGROUND[0002] Targeting advertisements is highly valued by advertisers because it allows placement of advertisements that are theoretically of greater interest to a particular audience member than blanket advertising. For example, just within the sports category, the advertisements seen on a television broadcast of an American football game are likely to be much different than those seen on an ice skating broadcast.
[0003] Targeting advertising to a user viewing content on the Internet or web-browsing on computers creates an opportunity for an “audience of one.” By analyzing what a user is performing web searches on or by watching clicks on a web portal, advertisements may be targeted to a particular user. For example, if a user is searching for hotels in the Caribbean, the search results may be accompanied by sponsored advertisements for hotels at Caribbean destinations as well as advertisements for airlines or cruises for those destinations. To target web-based advertisements, server-side search engines and web portals may assign a computer an identifier using a cookie for building a database of search requests and “click through” results to other web destinations. Similarly, a portal may use an email login identifier to catalog individual users and build a database of profile information. Advertisers will pay for an ad impression, and often pay more when an ad recipient clicks an ad link and pay even more when the action results in a purchase. However, web-based advertising is limited to targeting based on a user’s interaction with a webpage or search application in communication with a portal or search engine.
SUMMARY
[0004] An advertising framework may reside on a user computer, whether it’s a part of the OS, an application or integrated within applications. Applications, tools, or utilities may use an application program interface to report context data tags such as key words or other information that may be used to target advertisements. The advertising framework may host several components for receiving and processing the context data, refining the data, requesting advertisements from an advertising supplier, for receiving and forwarding advertisements to a display client for presentation, and for providing data back to the advertising supplier. Various display clients may also use an application program interface for receiving advertisements from the advertising framework. An application, such as a word processor or email client, may serve as both a source of context data and as a display client. Stipulations may be made by the application hosting the display client with respect to the nature of acceptable advertising, restrictions on use of alternate display clients, as well as, specifying supported media.
I waste resources of my computer to provide a better anti-malware defence, and Microsoft is planning to officially install “good” trojans and worms on my hard drive!
So, I have some questions.
- What will anti-malware applications be necessary for?
- Does MS want to become the monopolist in Internet advertising market?
- If the new framework will have components “for providing data back to the advertising supplier”, will it provide the data to FBI or CIA? (Don’t forget that a) MS is an American company, and b) there is such legislation in this country as the Patriotic Act?)