Google Nabs Patent To Monitor Your Cursor Movement 198
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."
A great user experience awaits in 2030 (Score:5, Interesting)
Thanks Google, for the disclosure of this invention which society will be free to benefit from in 2030.
Some will say that the game is broken and Google is just obliged to play the game too, but in that case, they could make a promise not to use this patent aggressively. Since there's no such promise, all we can say is that they're stockpiling dangerous patents.
Good luck with that ... (Score:4, Interesting)
I wiggle the mouse and randomly highlight text while I'm reading -- it used to confuse and baffle co-workers. Mostly it's just keeping my hand busy.
If they can infer anything meaningful from what is essentially doodling with the mouse, good luck with that. What I'm highlighting or hovering over has little to do with how they might be able to advertise to me. Heck, I think it would be funny to see the results.
And, I somewhat agree with the observations in TFA that there might be some privacy issues here. I already block google analytics on most of my machines.
Re:scary company (Score:2, Interesting)
Uh, Google is already doing that. Search suggestions, tracking the typing speed in form fields (they really do this, apparently so they can detect bots, but it opens up all of those possibilities)... They also see what link you click on their search results via background http request when you click it.
Legally (Score:4, Interesting)
What is the difference between this and a keylogger?
It's one thing to record commands I have sent to their computers by clicking. It's another thing entirely to track things I do on MY computer. I foresee a lot of legislation in Google's future.
Re:Hover on this comment (Score:3, Interesting)
Hmm... I wonder if it is possible for a plug-in to trap mouse movements and invoke/ave the link pointed at but report back to the browser engine that something else happened. *face thinking*
Re:A great user experience awaits in 2030 (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Good luck with that ... (Score:3, Interesting)
I highlight text, too.
Some people hover over the text that they are reading, moving the mouse in parallel lines across the screen and indicating to Google the speed at which they read,
Some people don't move the mouse at all while reading.
Some people throw the mouse to the corner of the screen while they're reading.
Some people hover over ads but don't click. Others avoid hovering over ads.
Some people's behavior changes when they use a laptop versus a desktop.
Most of the people I know consistently perform a single mousing behavior on websites, and there's a finite amount of variation between individuals.
The idea to observe people's idiosyncratic behaviors in order to classify them into actionable categories is pretty obvious, though, and I don't see how Google's saying "This *specific* behavior, in this *specific* industry" in a patent application qualifies them to prevent other organizations from performing this sort of analysis.
Re:A great user experience awaits in 2030 (Score:3, Interesting)
If anyone could post the link to that interview, it would be good to have.
I'm certainly happier that this patent is going to Google than to MS or a troll, but companies change and twenty years is a long time.
Re:They know that (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course they do.
Welcome to the art of Inverse Patents.
You patent the "sexy" form of the Patent concept, but you implement it 1-X. "Draw a burst radius around what you moved your mouse away from to read and correlate with subsequent clicks".
Re:The only problem with that... (Score:3, Interesting)
Why would you need to move your mouse over to a certain part of the screen when you can just look there?
Because something useful pops up when you do, obviously. Try the new Google Image Search [google.com] to see what I mean.
Re:Legally (Score:3, Interesting)
That's only half true. As a web developer, I have never personally developed any sort of mouse tracking software but I can tell you unequivocally that I could easily register a listener for mouse move (move, not hover or click which are both also possible) events and fire an AJAX request (or similar) to myself to log it. If I did it right I could re-create your entire experience with my page in terms of where you moved, when, in what order. In fact I can guarantee you there are sites doing this to some extent right now.
This could be blocked by something like NoScript, of course. I don't know if Google's proposed solution is similar, but suggesting that the current state of things has no data leaving your computer is not accurate. In fact your entire quote is only accurate if somebody has either gone out of their way to prevent such things from working, or somebody has chosen not to do it. I have seen links that you mouse over and get advertisements for. It's rudimentary and rather sucktastic, but it exists. The only limitation is each website has to do it or install something that does.
Don't worry, they'll bury it in the terms of service somewhere.
Re:One Word: Tablet (Score:3, Interesting)
You’re missing the point. As long as you have some sort of “hover” action, this applies – in fact, since useful information is often hidden until you mouse-over something, hardware designers are constantly trying to find better ways of implementing hover on touch interfaces.
Go check out Google’s new-and-improved image search results page [google.com] for a perfect example of this sort of thing. They’ve completely done away with the text surrounding each image – hovering over one of the results for a moment enlarges it and reveals the associated text (URL and text blurb from the page containing it).
In other words, for example, if you perform a search and hover the mouse over all the pr0n on the first page to get a better look, page 2 is going to be dynamically re-sorted to give you more pr0n, and the advertisements will change to ads for adult websites.
Curious when Google-hate will begin (Score:2, Interesting)
Since Apple-haters have completely taken over Slashdot (look at the article openly insulting all iPad users), I'm curious when opinions will turn on Google. Snooping on WiFi networks and archiving their data wasn't enough, CEO Eric Schmidt telling people concerned about privacy that they have something to hide wasn't enough...will tracking your mouse cursor be the final straw? I'm genuinely curious what it will take to push Slashdotters against Google. It's not as if this is an open source company--their primary businesses, search and advertising, are as closed source and proprietary as Windows.
Re:Curious when Google-hate will begin (Score:3, Interesting)
They've been on the fence with me for some time. I'm looking at setting up an email server on a VPS with a Roundcube webmail interface as a Gmail replacement. I wouldn't be so creeped out at Google if they could keep my email separate from my other activities, but when I'm logged into Gmail they track where I'm going on Google SERP pages >_>
Creepier still, I set up another Gmail account based on my real name for dealing with potentially uncool business contacts that forwards to my personal account. The level of integration that's been made between the two in the Gmail interface is as disturbing as it is brilliant.
Google wasn't scary at all back when I got my Gmail account invitation all those years ago, but things have changed.