Google Nabs Patent To Monitor Your Cursor Movement

bool2 writes "Google has been awarded a patent for displaying search results based on how you move your mouse cursor on the screen... Google's plans are to monitor the movements of the cursor, such as when a user hovers over a certain ad or link to read a tooltip, and then provide relevant search results, and ads, based on that behaviour. It means that it does not require users to actually click a link to know that they were interested in it, opening a world of opportunity for even more focused ads."

Re:I assume webkit will be properly protected

[The MAZZTer]

Good luck, a basic part of javascript ui coding is knowing where the mouse is.

Re:I assume webkit will be properly protected

[Tom9729]

This can be done right now in any browser unless you turn off or restrict JavaScript.

Re:The only problem with that...

[treeves]

I'll go further and say that I tend to move the cursor AWAY FROM where I'm looking so as not to be distracted by it or cover things up. They'd get a negative correlation with what I'm interested in from my cursor movement. But maybe they already know that.

Re:Hover on this comment

[tuxgeek]

Firefox w/ Adblock and NoScript may be of some use here already.
Just block all google related scripts
Nothing to see here, move along

Re:Legally

[PhrostyMcByte]

Websites have been doing this for at least a few years now already. They've got heat maps that show where people keep their mouse. I don't really see how Google's idea is any different, unless they feed it through some mouse gesture software to get a deeper meaning.

Re:This isn't a story about "spying".

[Monchanger]

People have done this and got bored with it 2 years ago or more.

If you had RTFP, you'd know that Google's patent [uspto.gov] application was initially filed in Dec., 2004. That's a little over 2 years ago in case you couldn't figure it out.