Google Patent for User Targeted Search Results

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

Disposable personalities

[zecg]

Don't allow cookies accross sessions, dispose of your personalities and change your gmail accounts regularly, use only GPG 4096-byte encrypted text in your gmail account, put on your tinfoil hat when thinking anything at all and - you'll still be within the System, tracked and numbered.

Cradle-to-Grave Ad Tracking

[K-Man]

Let's face it, the only economic reason for a company to build and host a bunch of unrelated applications is to link together advertising and user profiles. Why else would a search engine be talking about providing free WiFi service? So they can track users' locations and deliver location-targeted ads.

Re:Do No Evil

[Anonymous Coward]

"How could Google build such user profiles to serve customized organic (non-paid) results to? " They already have the information. Google imbeds a cryptographically signed globally unique identifier on every computer that uses its search (it's set to expire in a few decades, so the only way to get rid of it is by deleting cookies. If you have the toolbar, you're probably out of luck). After recording what you search for with your unique ID, Google uses a number of methods to determine what link you clicked on, seemingly based on the age of your ID and your browser (the way Google gets my clicks for instance is with javascript that loads a spammer style "image" just as the new page is loaded. The image is nothing, but the "url" sent to Google for it contains all the information about who you are and where you are going). This is why so many of Google's services remain in infinite beta - the services aren't the main point, it's the personal information Google can gather about you that they want. Advertisers pay top dollar for targeted advertisements - a list of 1 million email addresses is worth about the same as 100 email addresses with a small number of statistics. Google offers companies the ability to spam people with an extremely large amount of personal information to go on.

Re:it's all good

[Anonymous Coward]

They track what links you're clicking on since quite some time. You won't usually notice it because they change the status bar text to the 'normal' link when you hover over one, but sometimes, all links from a result page will be bent to run over a logger script at google. It's visible (and very annoying) if you just right-click and copy the link, or your network connection goes down after you loaded the search page. Sometimes those bent links disappear after a reload, sometimes they don't. Does anyone around here know more about this?

So that's why...

[mikael]

This has been driving me nuts for some time now.

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

a-ok

[frankcow]

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

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

Teaching someone to search?

[kinbote]

This may be a disaster for Person X trying to communicate to Person Y how to search for a particular topic. The terms that yield good results for X may receive hidden help from X's personal context, which is totally murky and can't be readily communicated to Y, let alone typed in the search box...

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

Patents always Evil?

[kg4gyt]

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

Re:Google and Privacy

[chromozone]

Google has the potential to be the invasive menace everyone thought Microsoft was. People get married all the time to nice supportive people - then when the chains are on the masks come off and the liberty taking emerges. The AIDS virus builds itslef into a persons genetic material - Google seems to be headed the same way.

Blogedy, blog, blog

[ke4roh]

Yes, if you keep clicking on the links from blog [wordpress.com] to [searchenginejournal.com] blog [searchenginejournal.com], you will find the actual [uspto.gov] patent [uspto.gov] links [uspto.gov].

It would be helpful if submitters included such links directly rather than sending all the interested /. readers on a wlid goose chase.