Microsoft Patents the Mother of All Adware 378
An anonymous reader writes "Ars Technica has an article on the mother of all adware patents filed by Microsoft: 'It's such a tremendously bad idea that it's almost bound to succeed. Microsoft has filed another patent, this one for an "advertising framework" that uses "context data" from your hard drive to show you advertisements and "apportion and credit advertising revenue" to ad suppliers in real time.' Ars discusses this disturbing concept, which was originally unearthed by Information Week and we first discussed last week."
"Context data" (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, they will but... (Score:4, Funny)
Yes, you will get advertising for The Pirate Bay, but don't be fooled -- every other computer near you will get advertisements for the BSA [google.com].
Re:Yes, they will but... (Score:4, Funny)
And then I'll start getting advertisements offering to have Jack Abramoff simultaneously lobby for and against my defense [wikipedia.org].
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Are you saying my fluffy bunny tail will get even fluffier after the patent? Woohoo!!!
Re:"Context data" (Score:5, Informative)
indeed (Score:5, Insightful)
Prior Art (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Prior Art (Score:5, Interesting)
Specifically Google has an exchange that reads: We'll give you software applications, remote disk space, and e-mail. In exchange anything you use our services for we will parse for key[words|phrases] and serve you an ad or two. This is how you agree to pay for using our services.
Now... if Microsoft were to come out with an OS that was free as in beer in exchange for taking a percentage of your screen for ads then it would fall under the same overall principle, aside from the disk space portion. If the ads were as inoffencive as Google's text ads, I may even consider it. My gut feeling, however, says otherwise, and if I have to pay for an OS then looking at my files as anything other than blocks of bits to store on a disk and optimize for space will happen over my dead computer.
-nB
Re:Prior Art (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Prior Art (Score:5, Funny)
Well, you only paid for a license to use our software based upon our terms.
We're changing the terms of the license. Pray we don't alter the terms any further.
[/microsoft_speaking]
Re:Prior Art (Score:4, Interesting)
The only thing interesting to me about this article is whether the patent is general enough that malicious viral adware now constitutes a patent violation. Along the same lines, I wish Microsoft had patented email spam so they could now be suing email spammers for patent violations.
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Here's this OS. You see, it's a $1200 OS. You have 2 choices:
1) $600 + adware. See, you get a discount, so it's OK for us to spy on you.
2) $1200, without adware.
Ethically, it's no different from what google is doing. You are selling your privacy to them.
Let's take this a different way:
Here's this OS. You see, it's a $600 OS (with adware). You have 2 choices:
1) $600
2) $600 + $600 adware removal fee
Why is it that people who would think the first version is a good idea, would be incensed at the
Thank you for your offer, but screw you (Score:4, Insightful)
Here's this OS. You see, it's a $1200 OS. You have 2 choices:
1) $600 + adware. See, you get a discount, so it's OK for us to spy on you.
2) $1200, without adware.
4) Thank you for your offer, Mr. Gates, but intercourse you, I'm buying a Mac.
Who says you will get a choice in the matter? (Score:5, Interesting)
Nice sentiment but take a moment to consider what the actual offer will be:
Option #1, the Dell M-Box, brought to you by Pepsi (this month, next month another sponsor....).
Plays mainstream media. Meaning everything on sale at Best Buy/Walmart in the movie, music and games depts. Cable TV will be delivered through it. Allowed to connect to the Internet and perform E-Commerce, required for E-Voting, filing your taxes and renewing your driver's license. Can run Microsoft Office, required to interchange documents via Microsoft Hotmail, the only approved mail service since they merged with the Postal Service. The only way to transfer content to your iPod. (Even in a total distopia I can't see the Zune beating the iPod at this point.)
Not allowed to run any unsigned binaries.
Option #2,
Buy a PC on the grey market and install Ubuntu. You can run anything you like but you won't connect to the Internet with it, at least legally. There will be hacks to allow basic IP access but no major website will allow you to connect because your browser won't bear the mark of the beast. Generate too much traffic out on the dark net and you will get noticed so P2P will be right out. Warez will of course not cease, just return to face to face exchange of really high capacity media, Linux will of course be part of that warez scene since after the Patent Wars any useful program will be in violation of at least one and therefore illegal to traffic in and also comply with the GPL.
Now, how many people will actually pick Option #2? They won't even have to police the gray market too hard, no more than they pretend to fight the War on Some Drugs. Just the social stigma of being outlaw will keep it safely contained to a ghetto.
Re:Who says you will get a choice in the matter? (Score:4, Insightful)
Option #1, [a video game console.] Option #2, [a PC as we know it, running GNU OS. The vast majority of web sites will be made compatible only with video game consoles.]
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
They knew that. It was the first phase in their scheme:
1) install Windows on as many machine as possible.
And now that the "Year of Linux Desktop" [slashdot.org] is coming, they are going to the second phase.
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I'm also wondering how long before this implementation would get hacked and people will be able to pull personal information from a computer without installing a worm or a Trojan or some piece of malware first. I wonder who would
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Microsoft can't make it part of my operating system. I won't let their system anywhere near my hardware.
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If you want to be a troll, be a smarter one. Otherwise, stop using Gnome, KDE, SAMBA, the kernel and a shitload of other products that Novell contributes PILES of money and development to or be considered a hypocrite.
Novell does sup
Re:Prior Art (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Hypocrisy isn't defined as using something you criticize. Or do you only use, consume, purchase, support, etc, things which you have absolutely *no* criticisms or reservations about?
2. Even if one were to decide to boycott Novell over this, why must that extend to open source projects that are freely obtained from parties who have no affiliation with Novell whatsoever?
3. goombah88 heavily implied he doesn't use Linux. So even if what you claim as hypocrisy *is* hypocrisy (it isn't), he wouldn't be guilty of it anyway!
I applaud Ubuntu (Canonical), RedHat, and all the others who had the integrity and good sense to decline MS's offer. I similarly am highly disappointed that Novell did not do the same. But I don't hold that mark against them as sufficient cause to refuse to do business with them, let alone the even more ludicrous response of boycotting everything, even open source projects, which Novell has contributed to in any way.
Maybe you should take your own advice:
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Nobody knows. It's secret and neither MS nor Novell will publish the agreement.
Do you know? You sound like you work for Novell so perhaps you could leak it here. It would be the ethical thing to do.
Trusted Network Connect (Score:5, Interesting)
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Why? Because all
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all ISPs, all computer vendors and most websites have a strong commercial incentive to allow users access
Residential Internet service providers also have a strong commercial incentive to keep malware off their networks and off their other customers' PCs, and if Trusted Computing proponents manage to convince e.g. Comcast and Verizon that Trusted Network Connect can do that, then Trusted Network Connect it is.
Computer vendors want to sell you hardware; they don't care what you run on said hardware
Tell that to Sony Computer Entertainment, maker of the PSP handheld computer.
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Re:Prior Art (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Prior Art (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:indeed (Score:5, Interesting)
I think you guys are all getting the wrong idea. Microsoft isn't likely to be so much as implementing, as much as being in the patent license business. IOW, the plan is to sue adware producers for patent infringement, driving them away from producing the adware that plagues their operating system products. They might license it to a select few companies who do adware that doesn't screw up someone's entire OS, but I think the general goal is to get rid of adware through brute force rather than fixing the technological problems that allow it to proliferate.
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Re:indeed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:indeed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:indeed (Score:5, Interesting)
It would be a great thing if this is true and really, I want to believe it. No one loses more than Microsoft every time someone else screws up something that happens to run on their OS. On an irregular basis Turbine's Dungeons and Dragons Online client crashes my PC's sound system drivers so badly that my machine blue screens. MOST Slashdot people would reflexively blame Microsoft for that, but neither the client nor the drivers were written by Microsoft. Do I or anyone else blame Red Hat when I have trouble getting third party screen savers to build and work right on the newest iteration of Fedora Core? No.
If anything, using the IP-infringement cudgel against the miscreants would be priceless. It's like designing bioweapons before your enemy gets them done so you can get a headstart on the process of designing blocking agents and cures for them, negating them before they can be deployed, but (mostly) without the messy prospect of them being deployed by your side. That being said, Microsoft might use this to their advantage with IP-mismanagement vis a vis multimedia and the ongoing war over fair use, but then again, Microsoft WROTE Windows so if they wanted to root kit their own OS, they could do it a dozen times over on multiple levels to the point that the OS was one large trojan dedicated to monitoring everything you did and really, would they get far with that given that if a third party fouls up their bugtesting, no one blames that third party and instead just whines that Microsoft sucks?
If anything, the paranoia towards Microsoft works towards making this patent and sue the miscreants thing a big win for us and Microsoft as we get the biggest dog on the PC block throwing its legal weight against the schmucks who write malware and we get to see Microsoft taking these threats seriously and instead of being reactionary and patching, actually being proactive and offensive, taking out the people who write these things. Sure, it could go wrong, but then, it always could.
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I think it's frikkin' awesome! Combined with the other patent about integrating advertising in the OS of your computer, Microsoft could turn using Windows for absolutely anyting into a such an ad-infested crap-fest that even their most ardent supporters would abandon them.
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I wouldn't go that far. I'm willing to bet people are so stupid they would use it even if they had to pay for it. Just because it has mickysoft written on it.
I'll even give you another example of ad-infested crap-fest that people will pay for, TV.
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If Word starts searching my hard drive and showing me ads I will either switch to Open Office (which is awful on the Mac) or write my own reference manager for Pages.
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If this comes to fruition, I am never using another MS product again. I will deal with not being able to play my favorite games, it will be well worth it.
Best news all day (Score:5, Funny)
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Linux... here we come. Thank you Microsoft for the final "push" in the right direction.
Cheers.
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Google Block. More M$ FUD on the Way. (Score:4, Interesting)
We can only hope that this makes it into an early service pack for Vista, and that Microsoft announces it poorly, resulting wholesale defection of their corporate user-base to Apple and Linux-based desktops.
We can only hope this is what Ballmer means by M$ services. The whole crapware industry that Softies point to when it comes to Dell selling gnu/linux is prior art, but that has never kept M$ from claiming invention.
A more disturbing possibility is they only obviously implement this on crappy free ware versions of Windoze and then claim Google is violating their patents. This would be both a FUD and judicial assault, much like the SCO case. They will, of course, continue the worst practices themselves while claiming innocence and smearing everyone else.
Does anyone need more evidence to abandon non free software?
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Sounds convenient to me (Score:2)
Adblock? (Score:3, Interesting)
No (Score:4, Informative)
"The software would also free advertising from its traditional browser yoke. "A word processor may display a banner ad along the top of a window, similar to a toolbar, while a graphical ad may be displayed in a frame associated with the application. A digital editor for photos or movies may support video-based advertisements," the patent application says.
So no, Adblock in its current form wouldn't do squat.
Re:No (Score:4, Insightful)
"The software would also free advertising from its traditional browser yoke. "A word processor may display a banner ad along the top of a window, similar to a toolbar, while a graphical ad may be displayed in a frame associated with the application. A digital editor for photos or movies may support video-based advertisements," the patent application says."
Prior art: The original Realplayer. Freeware products have been doing this for more than a decade. It was a dumb idea then, its a dumb idea now.
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Will the software read my ... (Score:2)
If We're Going To Patent Software... (Score:5, Insightful)
1. This patent will prevent other people from doing the same thing, and
2. If MS actually does this, more people will leave Windows behind.
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2) what if other companies join this bye-bye-piracy club?
this might be a ploy to prevent Google into entering the OS market (if it ever thought of this)
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Care to tell me how you want to force me when I'm using a system that allows me to compile it from source?
And if you can't do it yourself, simply do what people do today when they want to circumvent copy protection: Wait for someone to get rid of it and use their implementation.
Re:If We're Going To Patent Software... (Score:4, Interesting)
I could not be happier...vlc plays my movies, im comfortable with the odd command line (apt-get install vlc-player) i have azureus and limewire...all is well
my laptop is still xp though! (for some reason I have issues on occasional live video streams for instance all the ones on proelite.com (mixed martial arts). I am happy for the fact that i come home, turn ubuntu on and just use it...i dont have microsoft telling me what i should and could do....im a convert and i have samba sharing up my movies folder to my xp media pc in the basement (itll be linux once i figure out how to reliably get my tv tuner to work)
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But, what if MS simply got sick of various crap that infests Windows and decided to patent things they might do, so that they can sue the makers without needing an anti-spyware law? An anti-spyware
Conclusion. (Score:4, Funny)
The only thing between us and world peace is a patent on warfare.
And, the only thing between me and a karma deficit is a patent on insightful commentary.
Less of an interruption??? (Score:5, Interesting)
For me, ads that look more like the content that I actually want to read are more of an interruption because it takes me longer to differentiate between the important content and the crap.
Capture, milk, rinse, repeat (Score:3, Interesting)
While the rest of the economy maintains some kind of pretense of "ethics", Microsoft seem to have decided that not a single rule counts. They mock the EU's anti-trust actions, they rape the ISO process, and they screw their loyal customers more often than that guy in Oz.
No-one is going to shed a tear when they are up against the wall.
Re:Capture, milk, rinse, repeat (Score:4, Insightful)
You just need to look at the third world (and Middle East) to understand that in the absence of accountability, the most cynically and paranoid psychopathic entities are the ones that become the top leaders. The free market is supposed to provide the accountability and the democratic government is supposed to insure the free market and The People are supposed to insure the democratic government, but the government has been infested by the psychopathic corporations. It's up to The People to correct the government, but they are asleep at the switch.
free oS in the offing? (Score:4, Interesting)
this might be the mother of all adware, but MS might get to say "who's your daddy?"
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They've been doing a 'pay as you go' computer pilot for 2nd world countries, which I thought was a great idea. This might be something interesting for poorer people in 1st world nations. If they could find the advertisers to support it.
I seem to remember ad supported internet, which didn't really go anywhere.
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That depends on your definition of "go anywhere." NetZero the organization is still around, but NetZero the 100% ad-supported ISP model is no longer extant.
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no way (Score:2, Insightful)
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Indeed. Google desktop is just one step away from stepping into this patent.
Hmm... (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously, I understand that there's a certain amount of information that needs to be passed to Microsoft from Windows in order to fascilitate auto-updates, and maintain their (somewhat silly) protection against the "ship of Thesius" computer upgrade. That's all well and good, and understandably within the jurisdiction of the OS.
Scanning my harddrive for its contents in order to advertise to me is NOT something that is within the bounds of an OS's MO. This is an invasion of privacy.
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Let me get this straight (Score:2, Interesting)
It is interesting that it is possible to patent a crime in the US.
Re:Let me get this straight (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Let me get this straight (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, that'll fly.
*in the nebulous future*
Me: Well, in order to get the latest security update, we have to install the service that scans our hard drives in order to provide targeted advertising.
CIO: What? Repeat that.
Me: Ummm. Well, Microsoft's latest service pack installs a service that gathers information from the files on your hard disks in order to provide more targeted ads an-
CIO: Like FUCK it does. I don't fucking care how you do it, block that fucker from running. You go do that now - I'm calling our Microsoft rep to have a little chat...
As far as I can see, this will die on the vine.
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In the end this IS a bad thing for Microso
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Microsoft will likely not use this anywhere except their home edition, and they will probably reduce the price of the OS to make it a little more palatable to consumers
I used to work for an ISP that offered free Internet but you had to run their app that displayed ads while you were connected. After the dot com crash advertising rates were too low and they offered two different services. A $7/month with ads and a $10/month with no ads. All of the customers took the $10/month option. It seems that people
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Oh no! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Oh no! (Score:4, Informative)
"Oh no! My Windows machine screen is full up with porn advertisements"
You mean that their "ad framework" is an unpatched copy if Internet Explorer? I think there's a LOT of prior art on that one, from drive-by installs, malware, viruses, trojans, etc.
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I have a hunch they won't sue.
..if it's done right... (Score:2, Insightful)
This shall be an interesting one to follow.
If MS wants to shoot themselves in the foot (Score:4, Insightful)
That said, for a company of MS's financial strength, filing a patent is a trivial process; Therefore they will patent what they think of and consider it a resource to be used for whatever purpose at a later date. I highly doubt they actually have plans to put this in an OS.
I've been wrong before of course.
I don't think this is going into Vista (Score:3, Interesting)
Microsoft probably intends to compete with free Linux with a free Windows OS.
Dream (Score:2)
I suppose I can dream...
Not too surprising (Score:2)
Conventional wisdom.... (Score:2)
Experiential wisdom, based on M$ track record: they'll probably try, eventually.
Patent trolling? (Score:2)
This is good (Score:3, Interesting)
Just like no sane criminal wants to compete with the Mafia, yet will work against cops, I can imagine that Microsoft will squelch freelance adware/malware vendors in a way the authorities cannot.
Weapon against adware? (Score:2)
Maybe for different versions of Windows (Score:4, Interesting)
This strikes me as too intrusive for anyone to accept on a paid piece of software, but maybe MS is considering someday giving Windows away for free in exchange for the user having to watch ads? They already know that people pirate their products and no matter what they do, someone will crack the piracy. Someone will probably crack the ad stuff, too, but Aunt Tillie may not mind if she can get a cheap box that let's her send email and exchange pictures of her rose bushes and grandkids.
Or MS will give up the "cripple your unlicensed windows copy" and just turn on ads if you fail WGA. Piracy problem solved. Download it and watch ads, or pay us and don't. Either way you can still surf the web and play solitaire.
I suppose there's also the possibility of using something like this on kiosks or other public and/or shared terminals.
There has to be more to this than just sticking ads on licensed copies of Windows.
Considering I have already copyrighted my name (Score:2)
After all, I have to expressly grant permission to use my copyright.
And my state, Washington, has strict consumer laws about that sort of thing.
Adding a few words (Score:4, Funny)
Might Not Be Evil (Score:5, Insightful)
For starters they may be patenting this 'technology' (it's kinda obvious) defensively to prevent other people from implementing it (even as an 3rd party addition to windows). Alternatively they may be planning to offer special free computers to people who agree to be subject to this sort of invasive advertising. I don't like the idea myself but if other people are fairly informed and want to get their free computer anyway why should I tell them they shouldn't?
I've grown to despise advertising (Score:5, Insightful)
The other day I went into best buy and bought a $30 bluetooth adapter. The cashier asked if I wanted a $10 2-year warranty on the thing. I firmly declined and as she went on explaining the benefits of this program I felt less and less happy to be shopping in a brick & mortar store. The cashier was just doing her job but I still wanted to strangle whatever marketting exec makes them do that. I find generally all advertising really off-putting anymore. I know what the hell I want to buy, I don't get sold things. I'll take a psych test to prove it. I know it works well on lots of sheeple, but let me opt out damn you.
My point is, I'm getting pretty hostile to marketting, and as far as I can help it I won't have any more business with MS if they engage seriously in this strategy. There's enough spam out there, it really doesn't belong anywhere in a fundamental part of an OS.
Isn't it obvious? (Score:5, Insightful)
So Microsoft is trying to get a defensive patent to prevent Google from leveraging the OS as an ad-serving mechanism. The proximate motive for this is, I believe, probably to use as ammo against Google in the current dispute, and certainly in the inevitable near- and mid-term disputes.
Which is not to say that MS itself won't implement a tech like this in some fashion at some point, but I'm in agreement with some other posters that it will be a free/cheap version of Windows. They're just not short-sighted enough to try and shovel this into the enterprise; it would be the end of Windows upgrades for business if they did.
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MS has got to see the adware and spam issues as being a severe negative force on computing in general and a threat to customer satisfaction for their products in specific. The problem they face is that they can't haul a malware producer into court and sue them into oblivion on a claim like "Your product causes reduced confidence in our product, so it costs us customers and money", but they can darn well drag em into court (and probably win) on the grounds of "you stole our
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Amen! (Score:2, Funny)
Damn straight! Do you know how hard it is to find hairy, MILF, natural boobs and stocking porn!?!
Noooooo. They either (most of the time) shave it, have young chicks, chicks with the cartoonish big boobs, stockings and shaved, etc.....
Sorry, I don't want my porn to look like child porn - I want grass on the infield AND wrinkles AND stockings AND real boobs. God, who the fuck came up with today's porn!
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Re:More reasons (Score:5, Funny)
/Sarcasm
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No Intel is very well set where they are, they sell hardware and you cant really pirate hardware (though you can steal it)