Apparently Google has filed for a patent in “Incorporating targeted ads into information in a syndicated, e.g., RSS, presentation format in an automated manner.”
Uh Oh. TechDirt reports on this disturbing idea. After all, many folks have been doing this for some time…
Patent here.
Update: Gary points out to me that Google filed for this 18 months ago. Still and all, I recall Feedburner doing this 18 months ago, and others. I hope this will not be an issue…
Wow, this is like Amazon claiming single-click checkout …
Its true people have been doing it for sometime, but the fact that the patent info is public means that they probably filed the patent about 3 years ago, I have seen a few of my patents, which seemed pretty awesoem at the time, seem like buttering bread three years later
Just remember, Google is not evil, Google is not evil, Google is not evil…
Can you give me a specific example of non-subtle advertising in an RSS feed?
Maybe they wanted to leverage that in case of problems with the Overture issue or just wanted to file it so that they have to deal with an Overture part 2?
I hope this isn’t a sign Google is turning down the wrong path. It think it is more likley to be a case of them protecting their ad revenue by making surethey would always be able to do it or just filing for patents years ago that seemed useful. Stay Good Google!
No google is evil. Megalomania is not in it. You watch in a few years they will overtake Microsoft in the megalomania stakes..