Google Patents Fooling Friends With Snooping, Chatbots 128
theodp writes "Google takes Scroogling to new heights with its just-patented Automated Generation of Suggestions for Personalized Reactions in a Social Network, which not only data mines "e-mail systems, SMS/MMS systems, micro blogging systems, social networks or other systems" to get the buzz on your social circle, but also uses the data it collects to make like ELIZA and formulate appropriate responses for you to send as if they were your own (e.g., 'Happy Birthday, Mom!). Wouldn't Turing be so proud! From the patent: 'In a third example, a friend, David, sends Alice public or private message of a particular but regularly encountered message type (e.g., "how are you doing?" a common way to greet someone in the United States). The suggestion generation module suggest a good set of reactions to David, for example, based on the professional profile of David from the social network indicating that David has changed employers. The suggestion generation module generates a reply message such as "Hey David, I am fine, You were in ABC corp. for 3 years and you recently moved to XYZ corp., how do you feel about the difference, enjoying your new workplace?" The content of this suggestion are based on 1) prior conversations between Alice and David, 2) previous messages sent by Alice to other friends and 3) messages (sent by other connections in Alice's friend circle to David) which are either publicly or privately accessible to Alice, or some combination of these. Thus, the suggestion generation module generates messages that are personalized based upon both the sender and recipient using information that is accessible (public or private) to the sender.' Looks like Facebook may not be the only one strip-mining human society!"
The hell? (Score:5, Interesting)
If I received a text like that I'd know it was from a bot. I am fully aware I was in ABC corp for 3 years and I recently moved to XYZ corp, I don't need a reminder.
How about:
Hm, maybe I better patent bots that actually talk like a human?
Facebook already does this (Score:4, Interesting)
*so and so* is waiting for you to see her timeline!
*person you barely know* recommends you add *someone else you barely know* as a friend.
etc etc.
Seems like this patent is just getting Google into the game so Facebook doesn't sue their asses off that is, unless they plan on using it to sue Facebook.
Re:Think for yourself. (Score:3, Interesting)
As with any business, you have to make the most of exploiting the useful things it does, and try your best to ignore the shit it tries to feed you, no matter how convenient it seems.
You have a profound lack of understanding of what Google does and what
Google plans to do.
The consequences of using Google for ANY of its services will be far-reaching and
quite beyond the control of the individual user to remedy.
There is only one intelligent choice for those of us who actually do grasp the
full ramifications of using Gmail, Google+, or Google search, and that is
to NOT USE ANY GOOGLE SERVICES, period.
( captcha = retain. )
As in " Google will retain everything it knows about you,
forever.
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