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Google Patent for User Targeted Search Results 168

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the in-the-crosshairs dept.
lorenbake writes "Scoble is one of many to report that Google has filed a patent for user targeted, or attention targeted, search results which will change the ranking of Google's organic results per each individual user based upon that user's search behavior, location, sites visited, and even 'typing behavior'. How could Google build such user profiles to serve customized organic (non-paid) results to? Tracking via their network of desktop apps, advertising, Gmail, and other network services."
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Google Patent for User Targeted Search Results More

Google Patent for User Targeted Search Results

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  • Do No Evil (Score:5, Funny)

    by Soporific ( 595477 ) on Sunday November 06, 2005 @02:55PM (#13963833)
    Do no evil. Unless you have shareholders?

    ~S

    • Re:Do No Evil (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 06, 2005 @04:00PM (#13964223)
      "How could Google build such user profiles to serve customized organic (non-paid) results to? " They already have the information. Google imbeds a cryptographically signed globally unique identifier on every computer that uses its search (it's set to expire in a few decades, so the only way to get rid of it is by deleting cookies. If you have the toolbar, you're probably out of luck). After recording what you search for with your unique ID, Google uses a number of methods to determine what link you clicked on, seemingly based on the age of your ID and your browser (the way Google gets my clicks for instance is with javascript that loads a spammer style "image" just as the new page is loaded. The image is nothing, but the "url" sent to Google for it contains all the information about who you are and where you are going). This is why so many of Google's services remain in infinite beta - the services aren't the main point, it's the personal information Google can gather about you that they want. Advertisers pay top dollar for targeted advertisements - a list of 1 million email addresses is worth about the same as 100 email addresses with a small number of statistics. Google offers companies the ability to spam people with an extremely large amount of personal information to go on.
      • advertisers pay top dollar for it indeed. but google doesnt sell it. It sells the ad space IT delivers to these consumers. instead of throwing around the information for anyone else to stuff with.
      • Yes, it's surprising how that is actually used. I've never set any language preferences in Google, but after making queries in Norwegian and Japanese, it's giving me Norwegian and Japanese results when searching for something I'm expecting an English result for. And I'm not getting French and German results, even though both German and French sites are more common according to some statistics I read the other day.
    • The more power you have the more temptation there is to abuse that power.

      AFAIK, "Do No Evil" is an informal slogan around Google. Google would go a long way to alleviating concern if they added that to their corporate mission statement and bylaws.

      The current leadership of Google may be committed to "doing no evil" but leadership changes and leaders can become corrupt [online-literature.com].
    • I think Google has done a good job of making their search results more and more appropriate, and I really appreciate it, so I'm afraid they are going to make themselves less useful by trying to second-guess what I want. At least half of the searches I do on Google follow no pattern, probably more. Yet they will try to discern a pattern and skew the results appropriately. That will result in poorer search results. I'll have to start looking elsewhere.

      It's been so long since I've used a rival search eng

      • Not that I don't believe you but can you prove that 1/2 your searches don't involve a pattern?
    • Do no evil. Unless you have shareholders?

      This is not funny, it's the ugly TRUTH!
      This story ---> Google duo splash out for airliner [nzherald.co.nz] reminds me of a story I read in a magazine a couple of years ago. It was an inteview with larry or sergey or maybe both (don't remember now), btw, one of them said that everything is so simple @ google, to the extent that if someday somebody buys a BMW the he/she might lose his/her job! Looks like money has the power to change many things ... *sigh*
    • 1998 When google was founded:

      Henry Frankenstein: Look! It's moving. It's alive. It's alive... It's alive, it's moving, it's alive, it's alive, it's alive, it's alive, IT'S ALIVE!
      Victor Moritz: Henry -- In the name of God!
      Henry Frankenstein: Oh, in the name of God! Now I know what it feels like to be God!

      Now:
      Doctor Waldman: You have created a monster, and it will destroy you!

  • 2084. Google will rule the government. Wherever you look, everything you see will be tailored to what you want to see. Screw normal advertising, you'll be seeing "Google AdSense billboards" which display roadside alerts and stuff based on whatever you're thinking. Google is the new thought police...

  • Evil, Google. Google, Evil. (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 06, 2005 @02:55PM (#13963844)
    I'm sure you two will get along.

    The main reason any big company patents anything is so they can violate the patents of other companies.

    "What's that, Microsoft? We're violating your patent #314159265? Well you're violating our patent number #299792458. Lets call it even, shall we?"

  • Help me Slashdot!!! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Psionicist ( 561330 ) on Sunday November 06, 2005 @02:56PM (#13963846)
    It's about (= 'Google 'good), but also about (= 'patents 'evil), what to do, what to THINK!!!
  • Exciting times we live in... Yahoo and MSN must prevail!

  • geez (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    everyones jumping on the organic bandwagon... wonder when we'll see low carb google

  • Filing a patent is EVIL (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Since filing a patent is evil, Google has violated its "do no evil" policy. Google does like most other companies do immoral things when it benefits the stock holders. Now that we know that, can we please not get a stupid Google story in Slashdot every day? It is tiresome and the company is just as evil as all other companies.
    • You must know that in reality you cannot sum things up as just plain "good" or "evil". We are getting the lesser of evils, would you rather msn had the patent? I think we are better off with google having it, after all someone would eventually.
      • Patents are, at their base, protection for ideas. How the organization/corporation that has the patent uses it is another thing.

      • Wow, this logic has more holes than a pound of swiss cheese, where to begin...

        First, you've somehow tricked yourself into believing we're in a two-party (two-evil?) system, M$ v. Google, not true. We have choices way beyond evil and lesser evil. I would rather no patent at all that was so vague or relating to a business practice/computer code at all, but I'll get to that in a sec. If someone must hold the patent, why couldn't we hope for someone in the open source community to grab it where it won't be s

    • Re:Filing a patent is EVIL (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      "It is tiresome and the company is just as evil as all other companies."

      Spent some time reading Mao's Little Red Book? What is the deal with this asinine belief that corporations, capitalism and money are somehow inherently "evil"? The threat here is personal privacy NOT a company trying to make money. Most companies are actually VERY GOOD for the average man and make our lives better. Keep the concern focused on privacy rather than jumping to socialism.
    • Since filing a patent is evil, Google has violated its "do no evil" policy.

      Queue someone claiming that it's a defensive patent, and Google is just using the system to defend themselves. Of course that sort of claim is pure nonsense.

      Anyways, it's hardly new - Google has been using the patent system since they first hit the scene with PageRank [uspto.gov].

    • Since filing a patent is evil

      You are mistaken. Filing a patent is defensive. The five categories of behavior are:
      1. Mandatory
      2. Praiseworthy
      3. Neutral
      4. Discouraged
      5. Forbidden
      Filing a patent is no worse than "Discouraged."

    • Lobbying for software patents: Bad.

      Applying for software patents: Sometimes necessary today, but shouldn't be.

      Bragging about granted software patents: Impresses stock market, pisses me off.

      Using patents offensively: Bad.

      Using patents only defensively [redhat.com]: Ok.

      We'll see what Google does...

  • Just my 2 cents... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Froze ( 398171 ) on Sunday November 06, 2005 @02:58PM (#13963861)
    Before this goes all big brother...
    I just want to say that I hove no problem with targeted advertising at all. If there is a way that does not impose on my personal freedoms to selectiviely show me things that I might be interested in purchasing it is not only ok but much preffered to the massive spamvertisement campaigns that go on now.

    • Re:Just my 2 cents... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by cgenman ( 325138 ) on Sunday November 06, 2005 @05:23PM (#13964766) Homepage
      I have to say, I'm with you on this one, in theory. I really hate the irrelevancies of modern advertising. I would rather be shown a flood of ads for things I might be interested in (and preferably might not know about) in place of the flood of ads for "punch the monkey and win a years supply of Vioxx." Plus if the ads are twice as valuable to the advertiser, they can use half as many (yeah, right).

      That having been said, it is the database about me which is a bit creepy. But, as huge databases about me already exist I can't complain too much. I've always said that if we had perfect transparency, everyone's "freakish oddities" would seem normal.

  • All I want.. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by lightyear4 ( 852813 ) on Sunday November 06, 2005 @03:01PM (#13963883)
    All I want...is the ability to easily opt out.

  • Disposable personalities (Score:3, Interesting)

    by zecg ( 521666 ) on Sunday November 06, 2005 @03:02PM (#13963884)
    Don't allow cookies accross sessions, dispose of your personalities and change your gmail accounts regularly, use only GPG 4096-byte encrypted text in your gmail account, put on your tinfoil hat when thinking anything at all and - you'll still be within the System, tracked and numbered.
    • just wait until google's system is so good at differentiating between various typing habits that none of those protections matter. Just think, capitalization, punctuation, character burst rate, vernacular, hours of use, and formatting of search strings will all work against you.

  • This is awesome! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by LaughingCoder ( 914424 ) on Sunday November 06, 2005 @03:06PM (#13963906)
    Those guys at $oogle are making Microsoft look like amateurs when it comes to world domination!

  • All the world's information (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Ifni ( 545998 ) on Sunday November 06, 2005 @03:06PM (#13963909) Homepage
    ... includes yours.

  • Fine by me (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Turn-X Alphonse ( 789240 ) on Sunday November 06, 2005 @03:06PM (#13963911) Journal
    My Gmail account is my "send everything here" account. It gets spam from every where from tin foil hat sites to live journal. If you can find a way to work out what I like from "Person X has replied to your comment with 'lol, I agree' " then that's fine by me.

  • Cradle-to-Grave Ad Tracking (Score:5, Interesting)

    by K-Man ( 4117 ) on Sunday November 06, 2005 @03:08PM (#13963923)
    Let's face it, the only economic reason for a company to build and host a bunch of unrelated applications is to link together advertising and user profiles. Why else would a search engine be talking about providing free WiFi service? So they can track users' locations and deliver location-targeted ads.
    • Bullshit. I don't know about WiFi but I know plenty of reasons to do targetted searches. One is similar to advertising, but it would be to deliver targetted results based on locations. If you're looking for a particular product, perhaps local merchants would show up first (something that should be opt-outable).

      By other uses for tracking, there are plenty. I was on vacation in Seattle recently and searching up various locations and/or sites. Quite often I would get mixed results from similarly named items

  • Welcome to the future (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Colin Smith ( 2679 ) on Sunday November 06, 2005 @03:09PM (#13963928)
    Where computers and systems know what you want and then give it to you. Good? Evil? Well that all depends on intent doesn't it.

     
    • It's a cliche, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

      Personally, I think the that Google's doing this is not an inherently bad thing, afterall if not them, it would have been Yahoo! or Microsoft.
      • >>> this is not an inherently bad thing,

        Until your mother tries to use your PC to search for quilts and is bombarded with ads for TEENAGE!!!LESBI
        ANS!!!UPSKIRT!!!BEWBZ!!!!RIMJOB!!!TWINKS!!!!

        You will never be able to use your PC when you have company. Your Ads don't lie.

  • Are patnets evil? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by a_greer2005 ( 863926 )
    NO! the abuse of ptents is evil, and Google has yet to do this, they are just defending themselves in the arms race against ass-hats like Bezose and Gates, who patented the single and double clicks respectively, and other such loonicy. Google has yet to cross thhe line, untill they do, I will respect them -- HELL, if they havent abused teir power by now, why would they start?
    • They haven't abused their power because they weren't public, and they had limited manpower before. Both have changed recently. They are now publicly traded with more at stake than ever. They are hiring thousands, and when the new workforce settle in 2006/2007. Google will be dangerous.

      • Google will be dangerous.

        However, if you wish, you can still search on e.g. Yahoo! or other services.
        They're even catching up with Google's.

        It's not like Google will be out there to get you, but I do believe their users should be aware they're using the data they collect about you.

        On the other hand, who knows how many search engines hasn't...

    • Re:Are patnets evil? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by duerra ( 684053 ) *
      NO! the abuse of ptents is evil, and Google has yet to do this, they are just defending themselves in the arms race against ass-hats like Bezose and Gates
      And using this against them in the event of such an arms race would be abuse of the patents, and therefore evil.

      Unless you are taking about a "defensive" patent, a patent to prevent somebody else from patenting something. But that's just lunacy, since you would already then have prior art.

      And anyway, places like Amazon already do personalized results base
      • Say Microsoft were to contact Google and say "You're infringing on 452 of our patents, and we want you to pay $X for them.". If Google had no patents, they'd be kind of screwed. But, if Google has tons of patents on random crap like advertising in RSS and personalized search results, they can say "Well, you're infringing on 521 of ours, so screw you.".

        I think this is the point of "defensive patents". (Of course, I am not in charge of Google's patent policies, so I wouldn't know for sure.)
    • I don't know about "patnets", but I consider software and business methods patents evil, as they've demonstrated time and time again that they cripple innovation and legitimate competition.

    • Re:Are patnets evil? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by fyoder ( 857358 )
      HELL, if they havent abused teir power by now, why would they start?

      Hopefully those with controlling interest currently will maintain it for a long time. Because when the good king dies, the heirs are typically less good. When the good king happens to be that rare creature the good vampire, and the heirs are all typical, blood thirsty vampires, then the chance of going evil is even greater. In the case of Google it's increasingly looking as though eventually the blood thirsty vampires will have vast qu

  • It's already being done (Score:5, Informative)

    by Slashdoc Beta ( 925619 ) on Sunday November 06, 2005 @03:11PM (#13963942) Homepage
    On some seaches you perform you see a "personalized results (BETA)" message. I didn't really have a chance to determine whether the results are better, other than that it ranks the sites you visited before higher.
    • Yeah, I've noticed that too. For me, the results seem to be "better." It's probably just because I do a lot of repeat/similar searches. Anyway, it's nice not to have to sift through the same search twice because I forgot to bookmark something.

  • Filing patents to prevent patent misuse (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ip_fired ( 730445 ) on Sunday November 06, 2005 @03:12PM (#13963952) Homepage
    Perhaps they are filing the patent to prevent other companies from filing a similar patent and then using it against Google? Google has already started down the road of targetted ads for their users and storing everything they can about the user's search habits.

    For example, if you sign up for a personalized google page, they'll start tracking your searchs, and they will even let you go back and look at the searches that you made weeks ago.

    I personally like this kind of stuff. It's useful to me if I forgot to bookmark a site that I liked, I can go back through my search history and find the site again.

  • What were you expecting? (Score:3, Informative)

    by whayworth ( 928952 ) on Sunday November 06, 2005 @03:14PM (#13963957)
    All the clues were there: context-sensitive ads in GMail was just an obvious one. If you sign up for an account with Google, you agree to their licensing terms; you do the same when instsalling an operating system from a corporation who shall not be named. If you don't like the idea that Google has access to your email, realize that any other provider has the same privileges; it's just that Google, intelligently (but not necessarily morally defensible), chose to take advantage of them. If you didn't use Google, it would be your ISP or another email provider (unless you have your own server).

    TANSTAAFL.
    • I doubt general ISP's have any processes that troll through users emails for marketing information. That just doesn't happen unless you are a search company. It's true that system admins will have access to your account but that is hardly similar to going through customers accounts looking for data to resell to others.
  • You still have software patents? How unlucky you are! BTW, nothing new. It has been done many times (and long time ago) but in general for a specific domain (music, ...). Google is just introducing targeted search to their own system, which is a bit more global. Now burn the USPTO.

  • Get ready to watch ... (Score:5, Funny)

    by ngunton ( 460215 ) on Sunday November 06, 2005 @03:19PM (#13963982) Homepage
    ... as all the Google fanboys do mental summersaults to twist reality to fit the conflicting notions that Google can do nothing wrong, and yet web patents are so very, very wrong...

    I can see it now, future headline:

    Google CEO Revealed as Beelzebub Prince of Darkness, Mountain View New 7th Circle of Hell

    Slashdot comments:

    "Well, you know, Satan *is* very misunderstood"

    "Gmail still rocks! I don't care if the Google minions sacrifice a kitten every time I check my mail, as long as I have my 100 TB of storage! Whoohoo!"

    "I just sold my eternal soul for more relevant search results - but hey, I got a great price on this DVD player! Thanks Asmodeus!"

    "My monitor smokes a bit when I do searches now, but hey - I can find out what all my friends have been *really* thinking about me! Hey, this new GoogleBrainCrawler kicks butt! Go Google! But ... make the voices stop, please?"

    "Yahoo! made a deal with the ancient Nordic Gods but they're just playing catch up at this point"

    "Jeez guys, if it was Microsoft making a deal with Belial then we'd be all over it but just because it's Google, you're all ... erk ... ack ... (transmission terminated)"

    • Im getting really pissed at this now. Google is not evil until they have proven themselves othervise. While Microsoft has been and continues to be drawn into court upon various charges about killing any and all competition. I havent seen that from Google yet. I feel this is but a PR war to make it look as if Google is a vivious predatory company just as Microsoft but its really a battle in vein. Until Google really does something stupid not many will believe the FUD hammered around. Its really strange that

      • Re:Get ready to watch ... (Score:1, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        I dont mind a bit handing over my personal information to a company i can trust.

        When it comes to personal information, I think people shouldn't trust any company...
        Even if they are a sexy do-no-evil, do-no-wrong ex-startup bent on world domination for your own good.

  • you are what you buy (Score:3, Funny)

    by moviepig.com ( 745183 ) on Sunday November 06, 2005 @03:28PM (#13964022)
    ...change the ranking of Google's organic results per each individual user...

    Okay, here's a tinfoil-wrapped theory for your light enjoyment:

    Psychologists have long claimed that advertising affects our psyches (e.g., cartoon shows' cereal and toy ads, the NFL's beer ads...). Google proposes to detect those changes in our psyches, and presumably to reinforce them. This could amount to a self-fulfilling and dangerous feedback-loop... resulting in mental image-burn, if not outright transformation. Before the body-snatching takes hold, I'm writing my congressperson...

  • it's all good (Score:5, Insightful)

    by intmainvoid ( 109559 ) on Sunday November 06, 2005 @03:28PM (#13964024)
    Makes perfect sense for google to track which links i click on - essentially i'm filtering out the type results I don't want, so if the search algorithm can learn from that and produce more relevant results, then great!

    Privacy isn't such an issue on this considering Google already has this information on a per user level - this probably doesn't raise any additional privacy concerns.

    • Re:it's all good (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      They track what links you're clicking on since quite some time. You won't usually notice it because they change the status bar text to the 'normal' link when you hover over one, but sometimes, all links from a result page will be bent to run over a logger script at google. It's visible (and very annoying) if you just right-click and copy the link, or your network connection goes down after you loaded the search page. Sometimes those bent links disappear after a reload, sometimes they don't. Does anyone arou
  • ... a motto of "do no evil" with patent applications that use phrases such as "user targeted"? Obviously I am not a customer to be served, but a resource to be "targeted". What next, "identify and neutralize"? "Search and destroy"?
    -k

  • They probably have to do this (Score:5, Insightful)

    by max born ( 739948 ) on Sunday November 06, 2005 @03:34PM (#13964057)
    Google is not necessarily evil for doing taking out a patent. We live in a world of IP and patents. They probably have to do this for protection.

    However, if Google starts using this patent to thwart their competition then they'll be making a mockery of their own do-no-evil slogan.
    • Google does not "have" to do this.

      Reasons you might patent:

      • to defend against being sued on this patent: just publish your work so it becomes valid prior art (or keep dated, signed notebooks, etc. for your private defense)
      • to provide patents you can cross-license to prevent being sued over other patents: irrelevant in the face of IP companies that don't cross-license since they have no products
      • to provide perceived value to investors: supposedly irrelevant since Google claimed they weren't going to be

  • Weaving A Story (Score:3, Funny)

    by ObsessiveMathsFreak ( 773371 ) <obsessivemathsfreak.eircom@net> on Sunday November 06, 2005 @03:36PM (#13964067) Homepage Journal
    I'm sure I could write a witty comment about how the once noble Google has fallen from grace and sold its soul, rising like a rocket to the grat and smog filled heights of modern corperate decadence, but the storyline has probably been patented by now.
  • What with gmail being copyrighted in the UK, perhaps this is designed to prevent others from frivously patenting google's technology and then suing them in an attempt to get paid off?
  • Remember, in this wonderful technocapitalist system of ours, YOU HAVE A CHOICE!

    If you don't want to support the 767-buying [independent.co.uk], patent-filing search engine [google.com], you could switch to ...

    ... the search engine [yahoo.com] that snitches on dissidents [iht.com] to the secret police of totalitarian China!

    ... the search engine run by a bullying monopoly that has run afoul [cfo.com] of anti-trust laws.

    ... the search engine [a9.com] of another company looking to exploit the patent system.

    Suddenly I'm wishing at least one university had held on to its sea

  • Sweet Revenge (Score:3, Funny)

    by sco08y ( 615665 ) on Sunday November 06, 2005 @03:43PM (#13964102)
    We'll have sweet revenge when the goatse trolls run an innocuous search for their boss and get their "personalized results."
  • I was just thinking yesterday what a horrible idea that would be and how glad I am that google doesnt do this. I'm so cool.

  • Google and Privacy (Score:5, Insightful)

    by pdjohe ( 575876 ) on Sunday November 06, 2005 @03:51PM (#13964162)
    Google is getting worse and worse with privacy. From a geek point of view, they got a bunch of cool apps, but from a humanist point of view, I feel google is definately turning over to the dark side.

    In a couple of years, we will probably be discussing Google and privacy concerns just like we discuss Microsoft and security concerns now.
  • This is actually very clever. It's just a ploy by Google themselves to shake out all the hypocrites and fanboys. It's like that stuff the FBI use to show up semen at a crime scene.

    My slashdot policy book must be out of date. Didn't we all agree software patents were evil?

  • amazon doing that ? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by dindi ( 78034 ) on Sunday November 06, 2005 @04:34PM (#13964446)
    it is kinda covered by a previous amazon patent, besides displaying an ad on a visitors behaviour exists for a long time:

    e.g.
    My visitor is looking at portable mp3 audio players for the last 5 visits, you want to display an ipod commercial instead of a hairdryer.

    When that user searches for "moby audio tracks" you will present results ranked higher for places that sell mp3 other than LPs.

    Respect to google, but I think it is also a common knowledge patent. I mean what I mentioned is an afternoon of SQL query tuning that I do not want to compare to millions of results organized by google, but at the end that patent seems to cover a bunch of similar practices that fall under the

    "search result ordering based on user behaviour" ....

    the typing issue is a good idea though .... e.g. you can distingush grandma typing 1 letter per 5 seconds, while mr 10-finger-typer geek can type 5+ letters in a sec :) hmm ... strange idea ....
    I guess it also includes typo watch, misspell watch and similar ..... cool idea:) never thought of that ....

    now google will start displaying ads about "quit drinking" or "hangover pills" when compared to my normal daily typing I start typing terribly on a late Saturday night ? ARE YOU DRUNK ? :)

    now google just needs to start putting a HAL-like glowing red eye and microphones into our rooms, an anal implant and urine and stool analyzer to provide perfect results ....

    off topic:

    I mentioned it already , but interestingly the more and more google refines it's algo, the more and more I find myself using other search engines, as some of the things I am searching for provide less and less usable information for me...
    for tech stuff google is unbeatable, however shopping/comparing and travel, I turn to yahoo more and more nowadays.....

  • So that's why... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mikael ( 484 ) on Sunday November 06, 2005 @04:54PM (#13964560)
    This has been driving me nuts for some time now.

    Often, when trying to find some information at work, I'll try a Google search, and
    make a note of the search terms in order to continue working at home. Then when I go
    home and type in the same set of keywords, I'll get a completely different set of
    search results, with the articles I was reading now missing.

  • a-ok (Score:2, Interesting)

    by frankcow ( 925500 )
    I have absolutely no problem with this. I really don't care how detailed they want to get in their information gathering. After all, I'm one in a few billion people, what are the chances that any of my 'private' information would ever be surfaced in any way.

    I don't see this as an invasion of privacy. I see it as a business filling the need of a customer, one who wants to find the exact information they're looking for, and instantly.

  • Teaching someone to search? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by kinbote ( 100263 ) on Sunday November 06, 2005 @04:59PM (#13964610) Homepage
    This may be a disaster for Person X trying to communicate to Person Y how to search for a particular topic. The terms that yield good results for X may receive hidden help from X's personal context, which is totally murky and can't be readily communicated to Y, let alone typed in the search box...

    As a simplified example, consider how the agriculture professor and a freshman student may end up with wildly divergent search results for "Onion"...

  • Patents always Evil? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by kg4gyt ( 799019 )
    Patents can be a good thing in the right hands. If google allows anyone to use the technology it could be a good thing, because if they control it companies like Microsoft can't charge us for it. Google could get the patent, use it against microsoft, but allow open source not for profit groups to do with the technology as they please.

  • To thwart world domination, use your browser to block everything except session cookies from Google. This will allow you to keep using Gmail and your Gmail Notifier Firefox extension, etc. while keeping Google from tracking you across the Internet./p.

  • Cool! (Score:3, Funny)

    by CGP314 ( 672613 ) <CGP@ColinGregor y P a lmer.net> on Sunday November 06, 2005 @06:30PM (#13965168) Homepage
    So when I google myself [google.co.uk] I'll look really popular on the web!

  • Blogedy, blog, blog (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ke4roh ( 590577 ) * <(jimes) (at) (hiwaay.net)> on Sunday November 06, 2005 @10:03PM (#13966345) Homepage Journal
    Yes, if you keep clicking on the links from blog [wordpress.com] to [searchenginejournal.com] blog [searchenginejournal.com], you will find the actual [uspto.gov] patent [uspto.gov] links [uspto.gov].

    It would be helpful if submitters included such links directly rather than sending all the interested /. readers on a wlid goose chase.
  • I had a couple mod points, but I think a couple simple analogies will better explain that the behavior exhibited by google, and refered to in this patent, will clearly fall under your definition of "reasonable".

    You walk into a library in Mountain View, CA and talk to a librarian. You ask her to help you find some stuff about rosa parks [google.com]. And PS, this librarian is hot, you talk to her all day every day. She recognizes you and gets to know you as time goes on. And you sometimes give her mail to send, which she

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