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24/7 Sues DoubleClick Over Patent 94

Posted by Hemos from the isn't-it-ironic dept.
whitefox writes "Another ZDNet article states that advertising network 24/7 has sued DoubleClick over patent infringement, this one for 'On-Line Interactive System and Method for Providing Content and Advertising Information to a Targeted Set of Viewers.' " The irony here is almost delicious.
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24/7 Sues DoubleClick Over Patent More

24/7 Sues DoubleClick Over Patent

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  • Re:Opt out (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    If you're to believe DoubleClick, all that page does is set your cookie to a generic I'm-not-interested' value, so they can't track you any more than the other millions of people who've also opted out.

    Last time I checked, they DO reset the cookie value to something like "OPT_OUT". But they could still track you using your IP. I don't trust them after all they've done.

    Yeah it's a compromise, I know, but if you remove any links to their site the content providers don't get paid for the impressions and everyone loses in the end.

    If enough people block DoubleClick, web sites may stop using their ads. I don't block out all ads, but I block them if they allow any of the following:

    • user tracking - this includes cookies, "web bugs" (invisible images, usually 1 by 1 pixels, used for tracking - Wired News has these all over the place, including HTML email messages they send people), people who have databases of personal information like names and addresses, etc.
    • stupid patents
    • popup ads
    • Java/Javascript ads
    • annoying animations (not all animations are annoying)
    • misleading ads (i.e. looks like a combo box, error message, etc. but isn't).
    Slashdot ads are usually pretty good, so I allow them.

  • Re:Don't bother, use Junkbuster (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Just ignore the ads if you want, but don't ruin it for the rest of us by blocking out the advertisers that are paying for you to receive content for free -- because if too many start it will be the end of free content sites on the web.

    Ignoring the ads is worse than blocking them. Sites still get no money if they don't get clickthroughs, and you're wasting bandwidth (yours and the advertisers) that could be used to show ads to people who might actually click on them.

    Besides, if Doubleclick is tracking people without their permission, they shouldn't expect any sympathy. They make it hard enough to opt out to, you have to tell them "yes, I'm sure" several times before they let you. If an advertiser wants to know my interests, they should ASK ME.

    Hopefully, web sites will realize that users don't want to be tracked, and put companies like Doubleclick out of business. There are other ad companies they can use. Slashdot runs it's own ad server, and I don't block it because they don't track every movement I make on the internet.

  • Re:Opt out (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Not me. I have no interest in giving DoubleClick any additional information whatsoever. My approach is to configure my HTML filter (AtGuard) to strip any links to doubleclick out of any web content that I receive so I never make any connections to those net parasites in the first place. Same with hitbox, thecounter, adbot, linkexchange, etc etc. On top of that, I also block any outbound connections to their IP space. My PC is not going to make any connections to companies that compile tracking data if I can help it.

  • Did anyone else had to reread this paragraph at least twice to understand it? And afterwards did you think to yourself: "Duh!"

    The recipe for a successful patent seems to be the following:

    1. Select some process that shows good results in the real world.
    2. Think how you can apply it in the E-world.
    3. Hire somebody to rewrite it in a grammatically perfect but unreadable for humans form. The more obscure words you use the better.
    4. Apply for patent and start planning for a good vocation.
  • Of course if you run WinNT and it doesn't bluescreen on its own with sufficient frequency, you can always try the BlueScreen Screen Saver from the Sysinternals website. [sysinternals.com]
  • Heh. Now *that's* a funny screensaver. It really freaks people out to see various fatal error messages flashing on my monitor. Does anyone know where/if a Windows 9x version of the xsceensaver BSOD mode exists?
  • erm, I meant a 2.0.x at all, not just 2.0.36 :P
  • shows that people are still looking for free -- even if they have to view ads and are tracked.
    no, it shows that most of the people who have seen a useful web without ads, and who don't want to be tracked, also know how to run junkbuster or turn off cookies or remove the cookie file once a day or /etc/hosts the big adservers away. now if we could get an URL blacklist into Mozilla, instead of the lame-assed IMG filter (hello Mozpeople, adservers use IFRAMEs and ILAYERs these days), *and* ideally some kind of user-controlled flexible HTML rewriting...
  • http://nebby.dhs.org/wookies/
    modern day geek. [dhs.org]
  • The irony being that DoubleClick caught SO MUCH CRAP about this, and then after it all hashes out, they get SUED cause they didn't think of it first. That kind of irony.
  • Is there a good HOWTO on blocking ads?

  • Companies have to somehow let people know their product exists, so they have to advertise. If it wasn't on the web or on TV it would be on radio or billboards or personal (direct) sales

    Fine, put it on the web. But it should only be in the correct context. When I want X, I'll go to a review site and look for X. Or maybe I'll even use a general-purpose search engine. But do I really need to see an ad for X when I look at Slashdot?

    Ads aren't about letting people know that a product exists. Maybe before the web, when people didn't have an easy means of searching, they performed that function. But on the web, ads are useless, because it's so easy for a customer to actively find out what exists when he wants to know.

    So you bet your ass that I filter, and I don't feel the slightest bit of guilt about it. Those ads aren't there to inform me; their purpose is to change my behavior.


    ---

  • What a brilliant idea! Remember when screen savers used to turn your monitor dark? Then they started showing animations, and eventually even full-blown games. For maximum perversity, a crash screen shouldn't be any different. I mean, if there's enough system integrity to be able to show the BSOD, then the computer is still probably running good enough for a game of Asteroids.


    ---
  • ...maybe they'll blow so much money on legal fees they'll bankrupt each other ;-)

    Cheers,

    Tim
  • >There is no way anyone will be able to use human genes in any practical sense before their patents expire.

    In the strictest legalistic sence this is not correct.
    You are right now using human genes.. that is presumming your human...

    Patenting the human genes is in effect patenting the source code for the human race...
    There is a sereous issue of prior art to consider...
  • It should be optonal..as in default OFF..
    Default ON is honnestly NOT optional...

    Companys are often very careful about sending you ads when your an enigma. "Ok we found out about him from ZenRope Soap corp so he probably likes exotic soap" they prefer to make educated guesses.
    If you come out and say "This is me" then they bomb your butt with ads targeted to your intrests.

    Now if you can not afford exotic soaps very often you probably don't want ads for it.
    On the other hand if you buy huge boxloads of exotic soaps then maybe you want to know all the latist styles.

    I like insense and computers but I so rarely buy eather I don't want ads for them.
    On the other hand... exotic breads.. caffine.. now those are top prioritys for me..

    Value added content is helpful :)
  • just use mozilla and set the preferences stuff to stop loading images from sites other than the site you visited. anyone else noticed this really kewl feature in mozilla ?

  • Too late, there's prior art - xscreensaver does it. Random BSOD images in 9x and NT style. Also imitates the death rituals of Mac, Amiga and Sun.


    Now what you could try, is patenting the concept of a BSOD *in response to a certain error*. Then if Windows ever crashes due to that error then it's infringing software and you can sue for compensation.

  • This is good...just let all these companies sue each other until there is no one left.

    Patents really do work!
  • Shakespeare is considered great because his works expound on themes common to all of us. Who would have known his theory on lawyers would resonate so true today as they did back then.

    But nowadays, would he have said the same thing, him being a playwright and all? Or would he be the person leading the roundup?
  • you think this business lacks any common sense, wait until the pharmacutical companies start submitting patents based on human genes!

    I pray before that day comes the USPTO revamps their system. God knows what the the lawyers are gonna come up when the mapping of the human genome is complete.

  • I'd gladly support advertisers if they didn't try to track my every move on the internet.

    Any company who strips away my right to privacy without my permission frankly deserves to go out of business.
  • I'm sorry, but all of this privacy stuff sounds like paranoia to me. I'd be happy if companies that I might actually be interested in could get their ads to me, rather than companies I couldn't care about.

    I've noticed that I get more advertising when I tell companies "what I want." If companies know what you like, they're naturally going to send you more stuff than if they don't know what you want (or that you exist). It's a choice between getting a few ads for things you don't like and being inundated with stuff you might possibly be more interested in.

    Besides, it should be my choice what information a company gets to know.

  • According to this page [cdt.org], all you have to do is send an e-mail to optout@247media.com [mailto] containing your name, complete street address, city, state, ZIP code, and, would you believe, your e-mail address. When 24/7 media [247media.com] stops being slashdotted, you might look at their privacy page [247media.com] to see if they've made it any easier since the CDT [cdt.org] put its "Opt out" site up.

    --

  • From the User Tracking [photo.net] chapter of Philip and Alex's Guide to Web Publishing:
    We trust our desktop computers with our e-mail. We trust them with our credit card numbers. We trust them to monitor our phone calls. We trust our desktop computers with financial and tax data. We can program our desktop computers to release or withhold information without relying on publishers' privacy notices. If publishers would stop trying to be clever behind our backs, most of us would be happy to give them personal information of our choosing. Publishers could spend a few weeks sitting down to come up with a standard for the exchange of personalization information. Netscape would add a Profile Upload feature to Navigator 6.0. Then a magazine wouldn't have to go out and join an ad banner network to find out what we like; it could just provide a button on its site and we'd push the button to upload our profiles. This would be useful for more mundane transactions as well. For example, instead of each publisher spending $150,000 developing a shopping basket system and order form, publishers could just put an "upload purchase authorization and shipping address" button on their site. We'd type our credit card numbers and mailing addresses just once into our browsers' Options menus rather than 1,000 times into various publishers' forms.

    Anonymous Coward: Amorous? Candy now! | Raw Cod Annoy Sumo

  • And of course there would have to be a JavaScript command to automatically upload said authorization without user intervention.

    Incorrect. Why would you need to use such an insecure language like Java/JavaScript?

    Can you point me to this automatic upload JavaScript method?

    Regret for the past is a waste of spirit.

  • Here is the Opt Out Link fixed: Opt Out! [doubleclick.net]

    Off-topic, but good stuff. Get 98lite here and configure your Win98 the way you want! 98lite Worth Checking Out!! [98lite.net]
  • Myth. Everytime you buy a product, you are payng for everything that goes into making product, Including advertising costs.

    Myth. Companies have to somehow let people know their product exists, so they have to advertise. If it wasn't on the web or on TV it would be on radio or billboards or personal (direct) sales.

    Slashdot may stop makng money, and maybe go away if they didn't generate income with banner ads, but someone else would create something similiar. There have been boards like this longer then there has been advertising on the web

    For any large scale site, someone will have to pay for it. I can only imagine what /. must pay monthly for bandwidth... but its certainly far beyond what most people could afford to do on their own as a hobby. Most major boards in the pre-web days (the well comes to mind) were subscription based.

    In the end, it's a trade off. Somehow, someone has to pay -- and I prefer ads to subscriptions. If enough people object, eventually there will be pay boards and pay sites. But the failure of pay sites like Slate (now its free but it started pay) shows that people are still looking for free -- even if they have to view ads and are tracked.

    -rt-
  • Advertising pays the content providers their due, for sure. And not too many people have a problem with having ad banners shoved down their throats (unless they're misleading).

    But, as far as tracking users across multiple sites, compiling lists of browsing habits, matching real-world data with browsing habits, etc - that's not on. Especially without first informing users that that's what they're doing.
  • I tried to opt-out on Double-Click's site, but they wanted to set another cookie on my machine. I guess that I won't be able to opt-out - I neither accept cookies nor Java-script.

    What you're really opting out of is the cookie on your machine sending it's data back to DoubleClick - so if you didn't accept one of their cookies previously there's no benefit to 'opting out' through that link. All the page really does is set an existing DoubleClick cookie on your machine to a null value.
  • I guess you won't be able to find it then. Shame.
  • That's the one, thanks :)


    Slashdot doesn't appear to like my single speech mark things much...
  • I have no problem with the ads themselves - some are even worth clicking on, and they keep the good folks providing the content clothed and fed.

    If you're to believe DoubleClick, all that page does is set your cookie to a generic 'I'm-not-interested' value, so they can't track you any more than the other millions of people who've also opted out.

    Yeah it's a compromise, I know, but if you remove any links to their site the content providers don't get paid for the impressions and everyone loses in the end.
  • That's how they do it!

    Always wondered about how you can target ads at people based on profiling content of the same people. How clever! Not to mention innovative!!

    Hopefully this patent will destroy the whole datawarehouse concept. ;-)

    - Steeltoe
  • And of course there would have to be a JavaScript command to automatically upload said authorization without user intervention. Oh, are the pr0n and MakeMoneyFast sites sending out HTML emails with that command repeated several dozen times, which execute automatically when the email is read?

    The possibility of such a scenario occuring would severely hamper the chances of any such system being used by many, to the point where Netscape might not think it worth including in their browsers...
  • Incorrect. Why would you need to use such an insecure language like Java/JavaScript?

    Because the suits insist on it for ease of use, totally blind to any and all security issues. Can you point me to this automatic upload JavaScript method?

    Not yet, 'cause the features we're talking about don't exist yet. I'm just saying that such would be insisted upon - or, at least, a number of people would assume that such an option was available, even if they did not know how to do it themselves - which would blow a hole in public acceptance.
  • Is it even worth it to start an online business anymore? It seems to me at least, that since the recent "correction" on Wall Street coupled with other factors, it doesn't make any business sense.

    You are either going to

    - Run out of money

    - Get sued into the ground for a blatantly obvious core feature of your business. Years after it has been implemented. (OneClick, etc)

    - Run out of money
    - Get lost in the shuffle. For example, in a recent Newsweek, (or was it US News?) magazine. Prominent members of the internet porn industry basically said it wasn't possible for a startup to be noticed anymore.

    It seems to be true in all facets of ecommerce these days. If you didn't make a big splash in the early days of the web, or you don't have a brick-and-mortar infasrtucture, there is little chance you can actually hope to succeed.

    - Did I mention run out of money?

    If you didn't cash in on your IPO when you had the chance, it may be too late. A vast number of sites are going to be out of business within a year. Not Dell or Apple, but the smaller, newer sites that either had their IPO and are trying to justify it ex post facto or the unfortunate ones who relied on private capitol, who are even worse off.

    Up till now, there hasn't been a need to bring in revenue. This has been one of the few times in recent memory that you could run a great business without having to actually make any money. At least one site I know of doesn't do anything, and isn't planning on it but their stock has been quite healthy.

    The big wave finally broke, and now it is rolling back. The question is, was it worth it, and is it worth it to even try anymore?
  • Of course you don't fricking care who has the rights to what technology any more. You don't have the rights to any of it. The patent system is designed to allow a person to protect their ideas. If I invent a new and better widget and start selling them, my patent on my widget technology is the only thing to stop the big widget manufacturers from making copycat widgets. And since they already have the widget making machines, they can sell them for way less than I can until I go out of business.

    Obviously the lawsuit in question is just 24/7 seeing an opportunity to hurt a legitimate competitor, but don't badmouth the system just because some of the people in it are jerks.
  • ROFLMAO!!!!!!!! Perhaps then, someone should patent the *blue screen entertainment system* for all the people that micro$oft refuses to serve, such as linux, *nix, *BSD, be os, xms, os2warp... the list goes on. Think about how great it would be to have a program that gives you a BSOD every 10-20 minutes, just like good ol micro$oft blesses us with. The popularity of windows may be linked to the BSOD itself............
  • Wait! DoubleClick obviously can't be infringing the 1click patent. Or am I thinking of the wrong patent?
  • I think you mean this. [doubleclick.net]
  • I believe at this moment in history that companies tracking us are doing it in order to push ads to people who would interested in specific products.
    What I fear about this is what happens when law enforcement agency asks ,or requires, to be notified when you deviate from yout normal routine. Banks allready do this.
    Good or bad, changing ones routine is always a red flag to law enforcement in general.
    I guess what I'm saying is, I may have confidence in the tracking system now, But I have no idea who is going to be using it in the future. Since the potentional abuse is high, I don't like it.
    this is a US prospective, but I'd be surprised if bank tracking isn't happening in your country.
  • Myth. Everytime you buy a product, you are payng for everything that goes into making product, Including advertising costs.
    Myth. Companies have to somehow let people know their product exists, so they have to advertise. If it wasn't on the web or on TV it would be on radio or billboards or personal (direct) sales
    so you're saying they don't pass ad. costs on to the consumer?
    of course they do. that is why saying tv is free is a myth. They just spread the cost over a wide base of products. How wide? Just about every product in every grocery store. And pretty much every Automobile.
  • Looks like DoubleClick started all of this silliness... they sued Sabela Media, recently aquired by 24/7, for infringment of DoubleClick's patent for 'banner advertising display system and method with frequency of advertisement control.'
    --
    --
  • Is anyone familiar enough with a product called "Hitbox" (http://resources.hitbox.com/) to clarify how that fits into this scheme of things? While Hitbox doesn't directly force advertising to specific viewers based on usage, it is something of an enabler. IOW, Hitbox has been around for a long time (at least a few years) and does a pretty thorough job of tracking traffic patterns/etc. through sites...logs personal info like OS and such...and lots more then puts all that info onto an easy to read page for any marketing type folks. So, exactly what is the patent that's under scrutiny?

    -Clueless in California
    "The light at the end of the tunnel is undoubtedly the headlamp of an oncoming train." --Mrs. Murphy

  • ...and I hear that Al Gore will put a patent on his greatest invention... The INTERNET.
  • Would you prefer to pay for content than to view ads? Because content-oriented sites including /.) rely on ads to make money. Otherwise they will have to charge money for subscriptions -- or fold up shop and go home! Advertisers (tv, web, etc) are doing you a favor by letting you view things for free

    Yes. I would rather pay for a quality site on which I don't get ads. Like consumerreports, which is about the cost of a magazine issue, but let's me look up back issues. Or Brittanica. Which is a lot of information for a moderate amount of money.

  • Who should you hate?

    The firm that we all hate? (DoubleClick.Net)
    Or the one holding this evil patent?

  • How about a computer patent on a retractable drink holder?-)
  • Nah, BSOD is the Windows ReStartUp screen ;-)

  • Irony \I"ron*y\, n.[L. ironia, Gr. ? dissimulation, fr. ? a dissembler in speech, fr. ? to speak; perh. akin to E. word: cf. F. ironie.]

    1. Dissimulation; ignorance feigned for the purpose of confounding or provoking an antagonist.

    2. A sort of humor, ridicule, or light sarcasm, which adopts a mode of speech the meaning of which is contrary to the literal sense of the words.

  • Wasn't there already something done about patenting genes? I'm sure I remember reading something about the genetic code of the population of Iceland being sold....

  • Would you prefer to pay for content than to view ads? Because content-oriented sites including /.) rely on ads to make money. Otherwise they will have to charge money for subscriptions -- or fold up shop and go home! Advertisers (tv, web, etc) are doing you a favor by letting you view things for free

    Advertisers who spam me with Java crap and engage in unauthorized invasion of privacy are doing me NO favors whatsoever. In fact, they are sucking up bandwidth I'm paying for to show me crap I don't want to see.

    I'm not talking about all advertisements--for example, the advertisements I've seen on /. are not offensive and I have no problem with them. I've even clicked on a couple. But intrusive ads faking error messages or dialogue boxes, sneaky crap placed in cookies, and other offensive behavior is intolerable to me and I won't put up with it. And anyone whose website has such nonsense on it deserves to go under.

    While I used to be a fanatical Usenet anti-commerce freak back in the late eighties, I changed my tune during the brouhaha that erupted when a bunch of geeks were frothing at the mouth about Yahoo putting ads on their site. They were entirely glad to use the site for free endlessly, while others did the work to keep it going, but not to allow it to make revenue. I decided at that point that commerce was good for the Internet, and should actually be encouraged.

    That does NOT mean I have to put up with irresponsible commerce, though, or view it as a favor of some sort when some imbecile spams me with tons of useless buggy Java crap I don't want.

  • I believe you are EXACTLY right.


    ...................

    ... paka chubaka

  • Tip of the iceberg. I hope we technology geeks are not on the Titanic. It certainly seems like lawyers are at the helm and have no F^Kin idea what they are doing. Some of my pals are very smart lawyers. However, they have no clue how ignorant they are on the subject of patent law's impact in the very delicate area of technical creativity.


    ...................

    ... paka chubaka

  • What are you doing using free sites if you refuse to look at any advertising?

    Is this a trick question? I'll bite: the answer is, using free sites and refusing to look at any advertising! :)

  • the doubleclick optout is a sham. FOr the realthing go to http://grc.com

  • Re:Ooo, ooo! (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    *blue screen entertainment system*

    You mean the X Box?
  • From day one, it was one big advertisement. Not a displayed ad, but its purpose was to show off what could be done with alphas in order to sell more of them.

    I don't know how mnay it sold, but at the time it was quite impressive. The its use as a marketing ploy faded at around the same time that search sites & portals became hot, so . . .
  • I don't mind the advertising. The tracking really perturbs me. But what really gets me is the blinking. I've never filtered *anything* out just for being an ad. One blink, though . . .

    I've seen a k6-200 brought to its knees by excessive blinking . . .

    And I do support the idea of a stealth cookie exchange . . .
  • If the use of profiling led to advertisers sending out more "carefully" targeted material, thus outright diminishing the amount of spurious advertising going out, that would be one thing.

    Unfortunately, reality is another.

    Profiling is most likely used to increase the prices gotten for selling mailing lists. Which may merely mean that the "valued" mailing lists get used more , thus meaning you get more junk mail, and possibly cluelessly so.

    I bought something from "MacWarehouse" a couple years ago, so I'm now apparently profiled as a rabid buyer of MacOS material. Like clockwork, I get another catalogue from them every three to four weeks.

    Parallel this with the "profiling" being done of "disaffected youth" in the aftermath of the Columbine shootings. For a little while there, the "mass opinion" was that anyone wearing a trenchcoat to school was a mass murderer about to be.

    Even with more careful collection of information, the sorts of evidences that are visible enough to make useful 'profile' criteria are loose enough to result in horrendous "false positive" statistics. That is, the profiles will result in immense quantities of innocents being tagged as potential mass murderers.

    If such crucial life-and-death matters can be gotten so wrong, why is it reasonable to expect that there will be more competence applied to the question of whether you are a good candidate for an ad for a new kind of feminine hygiene product?

    It's quite funny that there's a lawsuit against the DoubleClick folks; it is not at all obvious what the resolution ought to be. There may be poetic justice involved, but it is entirely possible that a judgement against DoubleClick could be a bad legal result, representing an ill wind moving forwards...

  • Would you prefer to pay for content than to view ads? Because content-oriented sites including /.) rely on ads to make money. Otherwise they will have to charge money for subscriptions -- or fold up shop and go home!

    Point. However...

    Advertisers (tv, web, etc) are doing you a favor by letting you view things for free.

    This does not, however, give advertisers the right to track my behavior without my consent. If they want to show me ads, then fine, bring 'em on. But if they're going to track me, then I refuse to even see the ads in the first place. Is that such a bac thing?

    That's why I filter out ads (I use WebFree on the MacOS side to do this; it's a great little program). If you can show me an ad company that makes no attempt whatsoever to track its viewers' behavior, I will gladly remove it from my block list. Until that happens, however, I'll be blocking every ad I come across.
  • Yeah, I looked into this a while back after I noticed a ton of those on all my masq servers. It turns out that they are asking for an echo in order to find out which is the closest server to spew the ad out to you. If you wanted to eliminate that I would imagine using ipchains (or ipfwadm if you're on a 2.0.36) and silently deny that port would stop the message, but they are still going to send the request each time a page is viewed with their ads. I dont have a current list of all the subnets that doubleclick has (they have quite a few to try to avoid filtering). It's annoying, but nothing fatal.
  • Is there a similar system for removing yourself from 24/7's system?

    Yes:

    Junkbuster [junkbusters.com]
    --
  • If we had a normal-sized salary cap for lawyers, I GUARANTEE this horendous chain-reaction of lawsuits would drop. The only people who are really benefitting are them. They go and encourage the corporations they work for by saying, "Hey, you can make a lot of money/get a business edge, by filing a lawsuit against Foo", then the lawyers at the other corporation say, "Hmm, this is going to be a big battle, we're going to need lots of funding to fight this one." Then the lawyers from both corporations meet at a fancy restaurant for drinks and toast to their successful squandering of otherwise useful capital.

  • Haven't you been keeping up with the hacker/cracker thing? If enough people commit a linguistic error, then the error becomes orthodox and correct! Hemos is just being a pioneer.


    ---
  • Think about this...
    Patent the busness practace of sending e-mail to people who did not ask for it..
    Patent the tactic of grabbing e-mail addresses from web sites and usenet for spam lists..

    Then I chould charg a liccensing fee to everyone who spams.. "Oh my the way we own the patent for your advertising tecnique..."
    I think it would be just ever so fun just to be able to send out legal notices...
    Have the RBL work with me... Let them identify people who infring on my patent and I'll do the rest.

    Who wants to step up and clame prior art? Ohh I'd be ever so understanding if they did... give up my patent AND give them free advertising... Yes I'll just put them up on my website for all the world to see.. Spam Hunters.. ISPs.. etc.. everyone will know who they are...

    I want to patent Spam
  • Would you prefer to pay for content than to view ads? Because content-oriented sites including /.) rely on ads to make money. Otherwise they will have to charge money for subscriptions -- or fold up shop and go home! Advertisers (tv, web, etc) are doing you a favor by letting you view things for free

    Just ignore the ads if you want, but don't ruin it for the rest of us by blocking out the advertisers that are paying for you to receive content for free -- because if too many start it will be the end of free content sites on the web. Or worse -- they will require special plugins to ensure ad views -- which will obviously be Windows only.

    You know what, the web used to have a lot of very hight quality content on it -- and absolutely no ads. Maybe you weren't around back then, but you could actually find things with search engines like Yahoo and AltaVista. It was the power of that web that made me boggle at the possibilities.

    Now we've got a lot more stuff. Amazon, portals, news sites, and (of course) /. Some of this is good, and some of it isn't. But keep this in mind: not everything has to make money. Maybe huge corporations have to make money at everything. And I know that web space doesn't come free. But if I pay my ISP $XXX a month, I get some web space and I can put up whatever I want. Maybe I put it up because I care about it, or think others might.

    This is the kind of stuff I'd rather have. Stuff that people actually care about and do because they love. I'd rather read a website written by real people than a corporation any day.

    -Esme

  • Wrong. Pages get paid two ways (probably more but that's another story for another day), through impressions and clickthroughs. Every time you load a Slashdot page they (andover/slashdot) makes money. Not a ton of money mind you but obviously enough to make it worthwile.

  • Anyone else find it ironic that a company called 24/7 is making stupid infringements?

    I think I'll go patent the use of water to clean toliets.

    -------
    CAIMLAS

  • There is no way anyone will be able to use human genes in any practical sense before their patents expire. Let them go ahead and patent the genes. It lets them think that they're getting something useful enough to justify the enormous expense of sequencing the genes. Then they totally make up some possible function for the gene, which is almost guaranteed to be the wrong function. Then they get the patent applied for. After that, they do the actual research to find out what the gene is for, which takes many years.

    By the time they have something useful like a drug that either enhances or supresses the funciton of the gene, the patent on the gene is about to expire, esp. since they probably said it was for something that it turns out that it doesn't actually do.

    OK, then they have the patent expiry time on the drugs they developed, but they actually earned the patent there.

    Net result: The gene sequence is published, along with what the actual use for it is, sometime within the patent period, but not near the beginning of it. The minimum time to get this research done is on order of 10 years. This isn't like 'Internet Time' here. This is acutally difficult to do.

    Letting the companies get pretty much worthless patents (since they won't be able to further innovate the gene and renew their patent) is the only possible way to get the research done. It is extremely expensive to do this work.

    So, within about 30 years, we'll be able to say with some confidence that we have the genome mapped correctly and no one will own the genome anymore. Remember that quite a few genes have multiple affects on how a person develops and some take 50-75 years to have any symptoms. This research is going to take a long, long time. The best way to speed it up is through cloning experiments, which are illegal.

    Enough. I know this was offtopic. My on-topic opinion is that I hope that 24/7 sues the pants off of doubleclick and they both lost major amounts of money to legal fees. Meanwhile, I use Junkbuster.
  • ...go to a page to opt out of a system they shouldn't have put you in in the first place, and then THEY STILL SHOW YOU ADS.

    You say that like it's a bad thing. What are you doing using free sites [slashdot.org] if you refuse to look at any advertising?

    --

  • Perhaps I should use 'Socratic Irony': Was there a reason you cut-and-pasted the third dictionary source listed by www.dictionary.com, instead of the first (which supports my thesis)? Perhaps only your definition matters to you?

    Or maybe I should adopt your mocking form of 'irony': I totally missed that bit about Hemos feigning ignorance in the story about DoubleClick. You're right. He certainly used the term properly.

    How about this usage note fom The American Heritage Dictionary?

    • The words ironic, irony, and ironically are sometimes used of events and circumstances that might better be described as simply "coincidental" or "improbable," in that they suggest no particular lessons about human vanity or folly. Thus 78 percent of the Usage Panel rejects the use of ironically in the sentence In 1969 Susie moved from Ithaca to California where she met her husband-to-be, who, ironically, also came from upstate New York (though some Panelists noted that this particular usage might be acceptable if Susie had in fact moved to California in order to find a husband, in which case the story could be taken as exemplifying the folly of supposing that we can know what fate has in store for us). By contrast, 73 percent accepted the sentence Ironically, even as the government was fulminating against American policy, American jeans and videocassettes were the hottest items in the stalls of the market, where the incongruity can be seen as an example of human inconsistency.

    Lastly, let's not confuse 'dramatic irony,' the leading of an audience to see incongruity (without the actors noting the incongruity); my off-topic rant is not ironic in the least.

  • Wrong.

    The Internet is a fundamentally useful thing, an enabling technology that facilitates rich communication among individuals, groups, businesses, government agencies and constituencies. Everyone who needs this communication medium has a vested interest in ensuring that it continues.

    I vehemently deny and attack the assertion that advertising is required to keep the Internet viable. Do I have to listen to ads every time I make a phone call? Has the phone network collapsed because of the lack of revenue from paid advertising over each and every call made? Would anyone in their right mind suggest that the phone company (in collusion with advertisers) track all of my phone calls, their length and the parties whom I was calling, all so that they could build a better consumer profile to target advertising to me? No, no, no, never in a million years. Even clueless cogresscritters can understand these points. Why should the Internet be any different? The Internet has rapidly become part of the basic communications infrastructure and as such will always be paid for because it fills a basic need.

    Don't be confused by all of the rhetoric spewing from "content providers" who view the Internet as a broadcast entertainment medium. The Internet is not smart television! It is much more like the phone in that communication is two-way. I very much fear that that simple fact is being drowned by the rush of big interests to use it as a much more efficient means of information control.

  • Would you prefer to pay for content than to view ads? Because content-oriented sites including /.) rely on ads to make money. Otherwise they will have to charge money for subscriptions -- or fold up shop and go home! Advertisers (tv, web, etc) are doing you a favor by letting you view things for free

    Just ignore the ads if you want, but don't ruin it for the rest of us by blocking out the advertisers that are paying for you to receive content for free -- because if too many start it will be the end of free content sites on the web. Or worse -- they will require special plugins to ensure ad views -- which will obviously be Windows only.

    -rt-
  • while many bash the internet advertisers, they have been a big force in the proliferation of the internet. Remember how quickly the internet expanded before commercialization? It was just geeks like us without all the cool stuff. The internet gave us better paying jobs as far as technology workers go and cool stuff to work on. We might complain about all the clueless average users on the internet now, but heck even my mom is on the internet. To give you an idea of her level of sophistication, she got a message "illegal operation" on her computer and was scared she'd done something wrong and didn't use it for days! I explained to her that he didn't do anything illegal. :)

    Lunch is not free and if advertisers aren't around to pay the bill, this big bad internet is down the tubes. The lack of earnings is already hurting the dot coms on the stock market and within a year consolidation will take out many of those startups too. So rail on the advertisers and wait for all your free this and free that. Oh but wait things aren't really free, someone pays for them, even if it's not you. I worry that the next generation won't be the internet generation, but the "entitled generation" which expects everything to be free. I hope I am wrong.

    So complaining about advertisers as evil is like complaining about taxes and then taking the ability to drive on a well paved road as a right and not a privilege. I am as guilty of this too and I would be a hypocrit not to admit it. So hand me that "free" stuff and I'll look at their advertisements. Cause if they go out of business I can't get my free stuff anymore.

  • An On-line method of providing illumination on demand. This method, comprising of a Java Servelet that responds to specific user-defined input by displaying a pre-specified color and intensity of light..."


    Careful you don't infringe on MS's patented BSOD illumination server.

  • I'm having trouble seeing any irony in this. I mean, it would be ironic if a company that filed a lot of silly patents was being sued for infringement, but Doubleclick wasn't doing that, were they? Sure they were tracking people and infringing on privacy, but that's a totally different and unrelated form of evil.
  • Wish Court TV provided nerdy cases like this, instead of all those murder trials. When these cases that can practicly bankrupt large and powerful companies on the net happen, they effect us all instead of some guy who shot 2 people in Hickville, (Insert State Here) Although these two are not the guys handling my tracking and banner ads I don't know which one i'd be rooting for, seeing that support for the lesser of two evils is still supporting evil.

    English: Fry's 30 day money back guarentee
  • Shlashdot story about doubleclick and a patent [slashdot.org] I hope I got that link right anyway. I'm half asleep here.
  • Advertisers (tv, web, etc) are doing you a favor by letting you view things for free
    Myth. Everytime you buy a product, you are payng for everything that goes into making product, Including advertising costs.
    If you want extended channels(ones provided by cable and sat.) you pay. And still have advertising to watch!
    As far as banner adverting on the web, I remember a time before advertising, and it seems to me that the web was a better place. 'better place' ,to me, means people who put content on the web did it because they loved doing that, not making money.
    Slashdot may stop makng money, and maybe go away if they didn't generate income with banner ads, but someone else would create something similiar. There have been boards like this longer then there has been advertising on the web.
    I have always disliked banner ads, maybe because it marked a (in my opinion) negative turning point in the web. If I had always seen Banner ads maybe it wouldn't bother me as much
    When they started tracking us is when I really started getting vocal about my opinion on banners.
    If some made a billboard along the side of the road that tracked where my vehicle has been, I wouldn't like that either.
    Just ignore the ads if you want
    It is getting very difficult to ignore some of the banner ads. especially when they are so large, it has a noticable inpact on the speed of loading the site. I have dsl, and I will run into that problem time to time.
  • I'm preparing scrambled eggs, am I on a patent infringement?
  • Why do I feel an urge to patent a: "process of suing another company when they have done something that threatens to bring competition to a market".

    I would make millions {evil grin}.

  • NOT IRONY (Score:3)

    by Speare ( 84249 ) on Saturday May 06, 2000 @06:30PM (#1087486) Homepage Journal
    Hemos, Alanis Morrissette, any local news anchorman, and everyone else who can't go a couple days without using the word 'ironic':

    That which you call irony is NOT irony.

    It's coincidence, or meaningful juxtaposition. In Arsenio Hall's words, they're just things that make you go "hmm."

    Irony is very rare. It's when things are OPPOSITES, CONTRASTED, and UNEXPECTED.

    It was ironic that Ted Kaczynski thought the world would be a better place without technology, but he was caught when his UNABOMBer's Manifesto was published on the Internet. It was coincidence that it happened to be his own brother who recognized the writing and turned him in.

  • ZDNET Story - UPDATED (Score:3)

    by BMIComp ( 87596 ) on Saturday May 06, 2000 @12:02PM (#1087487)
    ``We understand that a complaint was filed. We have not yet seen the complaint. However, based on our initial review of the patent, we believe that any claim of infringement would be baseless. We will defend ourselves vigorously.''
    - Elizabeth Wang, DoubleClick's vice president and general counsel

    They forgot to mention in the article... that she goes on to say "And anyone out there who wants to argue about it, we know where you live"

  • Content and advertising information. (Score:3)

    by Denor ( 89982 ) <denor@yahoo.com> on Saturday May 06, 2000 @12:04PM (#1087488) Homepage
    It's been a pleasure to post with all of you. It's a shame that I'm not going to get to, anymore. Why?
    ...for 'On-Line Interactive System and Method for Providing Content and Advertising Information to a Targeted Set of Viewers.'

    Hmm, there are ads here (and even if there weren't, we've still got "Advertising informaiton" in the form of reviews & individual posts), and Slashdot is definitely targeting a certain set of viewers. You know what this means? No more Slashdot! Or Freshmeat, for that matter! Or CNN, or Fatbrain, or Microsoft home page....
    Then again, maybe the patent's not that bad....

  • So opt out. (Score:3)

    by yerricde ( 125198 ) on Saturday May 06, 2000 @07:41PM (#1087489) Homepage Journal

    i don't mind the ads, but it is the idea of tracking my movements on the Net that I hate.

    So opt out of the DoubleClick tracking system by setting your DC ID# to "OPT_OUT". (You can do that from the User Friendly strip's home page [userfriendly.org].) That way, DC can still serve ads and make the web site freebeer, but DC can't track your "pr0n in one window, Pinocchio on Gutenberg in another, Precious Moments on eBay in a third" surfing habits.

    I am an exit.

  • I don't mind the ads... (Score:3)

    by yankeehack ( 163849 ) on Saturday May 06, 2000 @02:14PM (#1087490)
    but it is the idea of tracking my movements on the Net that I hate. I am a bit wary of what these folks are doing with the information they get.

    In another perspective, regular TV and cable bombards us with ads, but these folks can only guess at who we are and sometimes don't even realize we're watching (that is why when I watch the Canandian channels, I get to see the MOLSON-I AM CANADIAN ad). Or if I watch THE VIEW on ABC, there's a panapoly of ads for makeup, kids videos, shampoo for women, etc. all targeting the housewife market. I don't mind these ads, since I realize the TV stations have to make money from somewhere.

    My solution to the problem is that I regularly hose the cookie file on my box every so often. It gets the job done at least.

    On the other hand, I get a chuckle from some of the ads that I do see, especially when I see ads for PAMPERS and LINUX products and outdoor paraphernalia in the same browing session. I have to wonder what my profile at one of these marketing houses looks like...

  • Don't bother, use Junkbuster (Score:4)

    by James Ensor ( 28950 ) on Saturday May 06, 2000 @01:29PM (#1087491) Homepage
    Going to DoubleClick's opt-out page is the lame way to handle this because you still end up playing by their rules.

    They waste your time making you go to a page to opt out of a system they shouldn't have put you in in the first place, and then THEY STILL SHOW YOU ADS.

    The right way to spend your time is setting up the JunkBuster HTTP proxy, which screens out both ads and cookies from offending sites such as doubleclick and anyone else you put on your list.

    The JunkBuster HTTP proxy is GPL'ed. You can get it at http://www.junkbuster.com/.

  • somewhat off topic (Score:4)

    by Validus ( 66121 ) on Saturday May 06, 2000 @01:25PM (#1087492) Homepage
    Good day, This is a bit off topic but it deals with DoubleClick. I run port sentry on my home network(on a linux box that is acts as a proxy uesing Socks) any way port sentry logs any one that tyrs to connect to me and on several ocation I have noted that some IP that is regersted with DoubleClick will try to connect to port 7 (echo port), they start at about 1:00amCST and go till 3 or 4am some time up to 200 trys a night. I do not have any logs of this anymore (I think I sent it to them once never herd back) has any one seen this type of thing befor??
  • It's patent # 6,026,368
    On-line interactive system and method for providing content and advertising information to a targeted set of viewers [164.195.100.11]
    Prioritized queues of advertising and content data are generated by a queue builder and sent to an on-line queue manager. A computer mediated communications network provides content and subscriber data to the queue builder and receives content segment play lists from the on-line queue manager. An exposure accounting module calculates and stores information about the number of exposures of targeted material received by subscribers and generates billing information. An information warehouse manager is employed to receive data from advertisers' data bases and third party sources as well as from the computer mediated communications network.

  • Why NOT be profiled? (Score:4)

    by MurrayTodd ( 92102 ) on Saturday May 06, 2000 @02:39PM (#1087494) Homepage
    I'm sorry, but all of this privacy stuff sounds like paranoia to me. I'd be happy if companies that I might actually be interested in could get their ads to me, rather than companies I couldn't care about.

    The junk mail I get from "Windows Magazine" or "Windows NT Administration Conferences" or home furnishing catalogs or other BS I don't want.

    If there's a product I might be interested, I wouldn't mind hearing about it. In fact, I'd be happy to fill out a detailed profile survey if it would keep companies (whom I'm not interested in) from wasting my time.

  • Ooo, ooo! (Score:5)

    by pb ( 1020 ) on Saturday May 06, 2000 @12:24PM (#1087495)
    I want to patent something, and I understand that to get your patent accepted, all you have to do is put "On-line" in front of it!

    How about this:

    "An On-line method of keeping and modifying a journal corresponding to entries in the Gregorian calendar. This method, comprising a transaction processing front-end, a database back-end, a Gregorian calendar lookup module, ..."

    Or this:

    "An On-line method of providing illumination on demand. This method, comprising of a Java Servelet that responds to specific user-defined input by displaying a pre-specified color and intensity of light..."

    Gosh, the possibilities... Now that it's online, it's a new idea! Can we take this further?

    "A method of holding drinks and keeping them cool while in the garage."

    Wow, now that we're in the garage, suddenly it's a new patent! I love the US Patent System!
    ---
    pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [ncsu.edu].

  • Opt out (Score:5)

    by JWAM ( 92890 ) on Saturday May 06, 2000 @12:03PM (#1087496) Homepage
    I hope everyone's used the Opt-out link for Double-Click at http://www.doubleclick.net/optout/ [doubleclick.net].

    Is there a similar system for removing yourself from 24/7's system?

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