Google Mobile-Payment Patent Raises Privacy Flags 83
bizwriter writes "Google has been interested in the mobile payment business, with rumored service tests coming soon. Now the rumors have some more tangible back-up in the form of a patent application that not only describes a versatile payment system, but one in which Google would obtain details of purchasing that are normally unavailable."
Reader Batblue points out a related article about how the temptation of 'big data' is leading businesses to draw us closer to a surveillance society.
Repeat after me: (Score:4, Informative)
"A patent isn't a product."
Patents have only one power. To prevent others from using what you patented. You don't have to do it. You might not want to. You might not be able to. So why file for a patent on something you'll never use?
Strategy. If you figure out two good ways to make something, but one is slightly better than the other, you patent both. But you're not going to bother making something the less desirable way, you just don't want a competitor to either. Or maybe for moral reasons, you don't want anyone to do it (lobotomy ray gun, whatever).
Or maybe you can't do what you patented for practical reasons. Patent interference, market conditions, the law (i.e. bald eagle killing machine).
If and when Google actually implements the patent everyone is commenting on, then you can worry. Until then, a patent isn't a product. It's just an idea on a piece of paper.