ilago
Premium
join:2005-06-28
Australia
 ·Internode
| Windows to become Adware and User Data Collection Service
From here:
»slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/14/043200
"The kernel meets The Colonel in a just-published Microsoft patent application for an Advertising Services Architecture, which delivers targeted advertising as 'part of the OS.' Microsoft, who once teamed with law enforcement to protect consumers from unwanted advertising, goes on to boast that the invention can 'take steps to verify ad consumption,' be used to block ads from competitors, and even sneak a peek at 'user document files, user e-mail files, user music files, downloaded podcasts, computer settings, [and] computer status messages' to deliver more tightly targeted ads."
The patent application is genuine.
»appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Par···70157227
I cannot think of a single legitimate reason for Microsoft to be doing this. The technology would not be difficult to include in Vista and the Vista EULA may permit this already. |
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swhx7
Premium
join:2006-07-23
Elbonia | They would lose a lot of the market by trying to force it on users.
One possible use would be an adware PC deal: poor people get the hardware and OS for cheap or free, in exchange for being subjected to unavoidable ads. |
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OZO
Premium
join:2003-01-17
1 edit | reply to ilago
I'm thinking that WXP may be the last OS that I've bought form m$. DRM infested Vista is just a bloatware that actually offers almost nothing as a new OS comparing to WXP. It just gives more control over users computers to m$. I really do not see a reason why I have to abandon WXP and move to Vista now. But in a while I probably will have to make my new choice...
Go ahead, m$!
Make my decision easier.
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Keep it simple, it'll become complex by itself... |
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ilago
Premium
join:2005-06-28
Australia
·Internode
| reply to swhx7
said by swhx7  :They would lose a lot of the market by trying to force it on users. One possible use would be an adware PC deal: poor people get the hardware and OS for cheap or free, in exchange for being subjected to unavoidable ads. While I think this is a possibility, there's nothing limiting its use to that level. I'm still thinking boiling frogs. Consumer objections and reservations have never made much of an impression on Microsoft in the past 
An additional application providing advertising I could accept. The operating system itself collecting data serving directed advertising is such a terrible concept.
What in the world are they thinking?? |
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wapu
Broadband Ranger
Premium
join:2001-09-05
Germantown, MD
clubs: 
| reply to ilago
Maybe they are applying for the patent to keep anyone else from doing it? 
Could be that MS is looking to block the potential spread of "alternative" OSes being used on cheap PCs supported by ads. Sort of along the lines of what was suggested , but not for MS, but to stop others?
Of course it is all just speculation and we all love a good MS bash session anyways.
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When a friend asks me to choose between friends, I will always choose the friend that didn't ask me to choose. |
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caffeinator
Coming soon to a cup near you..
Premium
join:2005-01-16
Spokane, WA
·WebBand
| reply to ilago
said by ilago :What in the world are they thinking?? That they haven't made enough money off us yet, and are scared of Google beating them to that ad market?
When you you have billions of people at your mercy, why not?
If the DOJ and the EU can't fight Microsoft worth a damn, what chance do we have?
It'll likely be written into the EULA for a future Windows version...that most people won't read anyway, and so they won't have an avenue to complain.
-CaFF
--
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." - A. Einstein
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ilago
Premium
join:2005-06-28
Australia
·Internode
| said by caffeinator :said by ilago :What in the world are they thinking?? That they haven't made enough money off us yet, and are scared of Google beating them to that ad market? When you you have billions of people at your mercy, why not? If the DOJ and the EU can't fight Microsoft worth a damn, what chance do we have? It'll likely be written into the EULA for a future Windows version...that most people won't read anyway, and so they won't have an avenue to complain. -CaFF Somehow, the fact that they don't need to do this bothers me the most  |
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dave
Premium,MVM
join:2000-05-04
not in ohio
·Verizon Online DSL
 ·Verizon FIOS
| reply to ilago
'A patent' and 'an implementation delivered in Windows' are two different things. They don't need a patent to show ads in Windows, if that's what you're worried about (and I am, too - I'd avoid ad-supported Windows just like I avoid ad-supported radio and ad-supported TV).
On the other hand, I suppose the bad news is that it shows that someone in Microsoft is thinking about it. But we already knew that, from their acquisitions of online ad companies, right? Without that second datum, it would be possible to assume this is 'just research' - every large company does some amount that. |
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dave
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join:2000-05-04
not in ohio
·Verizon Online DSL
·Verizon FIOS
| reply to caffeinator
said by caffeinator :If the DOJ and the EU can't fight Microsoft worth a damn, what chance do we have? Stop buying their products? |
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caffeinator
Coming soon to a cup near you..
Premium
join:2005-01-16
Spokane, WA
·WebBand
| said by dave :said by caffeinator :If the DOJ and the EU can't fight Microsoft worth a damn, what chance do we have? Stop buying their products? Well, sure.
I just hate the stranglehold they have on the consumer market that gives them carte blanche to do practically whatever they want.
Myself, I got all my M$ products for free from M$ when I did tech support work for an outsourcer of theirs.
I'd never spend more money than my computer cost to build just for an OS to run it with...that's just silly. 
-CaFF
--
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." - A. Einstein
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Cairninator
join:2007-02-14
Sedona, AZ
| reply to ilago
I love it! First MS "strangles" you into submission, and for the holdouts, it slyly disseminates it's products for free. George Orwell is smiling in heaven knowing all his predictions are coming true and then some. Funny, I've looked all over my computers and I can't find anything that came from MS. Oh, well I guess it's the tin foil hat that keeps me from absorbing all the good stuff. Shouldn't I feel some kind of loss or sorrow? Thrash on MS robots, thrash on  |
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ilago
Premium
join:2005-06-28
Australia
·Internode
| reply to dave
said by dave :said by caffeinator :If the DOJ and the EU can't fight Microsoft worth a damn, what chance do we have? Stop buying their products? Certainly a market response to any such activity might give Microsoft pause to think a little before acting rashly. They don't really have a record that would indicate they do that very often.
Which of the markets would they respond to? The user market? If the whole of the 15%-20% of machines that don't run Windows was reduced by 10%. They still have a monopoly by the "75% of the market" definition. How badly would that matter? They lose 15% of their corporate users. Might matter a little more, but the specialised systems developed specifically for the Windows environment aren't going to disappear, so that market is pretty solid as well. There's not going to be a mass market shift any time soon. It would take a massive shift in the market to make a dent. That's millions of computers in homes and businesses making a decision to migrate to using another OS in a relatively short period of time. They've got reserves to handle that and may have the marketing power to regain part of it anyway.
They also have shareholders and affiliates, the **AAs, and no doubt others. Their obligations to shareholders, partners and affiliate organisations has to be seriously influentual. A stock market slide of any sort would be influentual. That market would not have a problem with the ethics of something like this and it would increase their revenue stream from the saleable nature of the data that would be available. Microsoft are obliged to continue to improve their income stream to maintain those legal obligations of any corporation in terms of company performance and share price (company value).
I think they could take the chance and see what happens. They can certainly stand a little flack from disgruntled users in financial terms and not risk losing their major and important customers and keep the shareholders happy. |
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dave
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join:2000-05-04
not in ohio
·Verizon Online DSL
·Verizon FIOS
| reply to Cairninator
said by Cairninator :George Orwell is smiling in heaven knowing all his predictions are coming true and then some. What? |
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koma3504
Advocate
Premium
join:2004-06-22
North Richland Hills, TX | reply to ilago
No alsta la vista for me.
Just send the NSA and the CIA after them if the DOJ cant get the job done.
Isn't this exactly why we disable windows messenger service in Xp and why it is Disabled by default in XP sp2 ?? |
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Sindows 7
join:2006-09-13
Hope, BC
|  reply to wapu
said by wapu :Maybe they are applying for the patent to keep anyone else from doing it? Could be that MS is looking to block the potential spread of "alternative" OSes being used on cheap PCs supported by ads. Sort of along the lines of what was suggested , but not for MS, but to stop others? Of course it is all just speculation and we all love a good MS bash session anyways. Hopefully thats what it is. |
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Anonymous_
Anonymous
Premium
join:2004-06-21
127.0.0.1
clubs:
 ·RoadRunner Cable
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1 edit | said by Sindows 7 :said by wapu :Maybe they are applying for the patent to keep anyone else from doing it? Could be that MS is looking to block the potential spread of "alternative" OSes being used on cheap PCs supported by ads. Sort of along the lines of what was suggested , but not for MS, but to stop others? Of course it is all just speculation and we all love a good MS bash session anyways. Hopefully thats what it is. tobad it will get hacked in 2 days or less
--
Global warming did not eat my homework. |
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swhx7
Premium
join:2006-07-23
Elbonia
·RoadRunner Cable
| reply to ilago
I would bet that Msoft hasn't decided what to do with it. They want to own it, of course, and have it ready to use whenever it looks advantageous.
The capability for data-mining users already exists in Windows, especially Vista. See for example this other Slashdot story today with links on how Vista routinely stores copious information about what each user has been doing on the computer over a long period of time.
The only thing restraining Microsoft from "harvesting" and selling user data is the potential for backlash. In this thread here in the past week ("Vista harvests user data for Ms") posters have expressed concern about Vista's "phone home" features. Technically adept users would quickly detect it if Microsoft tried to sneak spyware features into updates or anything of that sort.
So how to exploit the potential for data-mining users and advertising to them? I predict that if Vista becomes widely entrenched, Microsoft will start adding the adware features on a supposedly "opt in" or "opt out" basis, and spin it as some sort of advantage for users. If on the other hand Vista continues being taken up slowly, MS will go for the adware PC as a separate product, or maybe license it to other companies. |
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dave
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join:2000-05-04
not in ohio
·Verizon Online DSL
·Verizon FIOS
1 edit | Of course, what Slashdotters think of as an invasion of privacy, programmers think of as 'useful features' (caching of frequently-used data, backup of changed files, and so on).
Slashdotters had better hope they never get a system like Plan 9 From Bell Labs, at least not as deployed at Bell, where everything ever written tend to end up on WORM storage. And remember, this was the former Unix developers - they're the good guys..
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I tend to agree with your position that, for MS, this is an enabling technology that's waiting for a final roll-out plan. |
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SUMware
Premium
join:2002-05-21
| reply to swhx7
said by swhx7 :The capability for data-mining users already exists in Windows, especially Vista. See for example this other Slashdot story today with links on how Vista routinely stores copious information about what each user has been doing on the computer over a long period of time. Thanks for the link.
From that article:
From ABA Journal (American Bar Association)
Microsoft's Vista stores much more data—and may affect the discovery process
By Jason Krause
July 13, 2007: said by ABA Journal :
Available since late January, Vista offers a host of new security and built-in backup features. But from a litigator’s perspective, the interesting point is that it keeps a lot more information—and more detailed information—about what a person does with a PC. This means lawyers can potentially discover more forensic evidence about what is on a computer and construct more detailed time lines about what was done with that information.
For example, a new feature called Transactional NTFS, or TxF in Windows-speak, keeps much more detailed user records. These records allow attorneys to construct a more accurate time line of events.
“Right now you can ... say information was accessed on a certain day, but that might not prove anything,” says John Simek, co-founder of Sensei Enterprises, a legal technology and computer forensics firm in Fairfax, Va.
But with Vista “you can look in there and see something was accessed on Monday, Tuesday and Saturday at such-and-such a time going back months.”
Vista keeps something called a shadow copy that backs up your work in the unused space on the hard drive. It’s designed to prevent data loss; but with it that data will stay on the computer—perhaps forever. Windows systems have been replicating data similarly in recent releases, but Vista makes it easier for forensic examiners to find deleted data.
In addition, the new Instant Search technology allows users to find documents faster by keeping an index of things they have worked on.
However, the index becomes a new source of discoverable information that details almost everything one uses a computer for. “It’s Google Desktop on steroids,” says Simek. “It’s an indexed database of more evidence stored right there on a computer.”
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Psicop
More human than human
Premium
join:2005-12-21 | reply to ilago
Nah! They are just too scared of the increased Linux, Mac and other OS users.
Hope one day this company goes into oblivion. |
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