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Patent also describes using other environmental factors such as air temperature to produce ads
Adverts could soon be tailored according to the background noise around you when using your smartphone, if a patent application by Google becomes reality.
The search engine giant has filed for a patent called ‘Advertising based on environmental conditions.’ As that title implies, it’s not just background sounds that could be used to determine what adverts you seen on your mobile phone. The patent also describes using ‘temperature, humidity, light and air composition’ to produced targeted adverts. The application said: ‘A web browser or search engine located at the user's site may obtain information on the environment (e.g., temperature, humidity, light, sound, air composition) from sensors.
‘Advertisers may specify that the ads are shown to users whose environmental conditions meet certain criteria. ‘For example, advertisements for air conditioners can be sent to users located at regions having temperatures above a first threshold, while advertisements for winter overcoats can be sent to users located at regions having temperatures below a second threshold.’
Google has come under fire recently with users becoming increasingly concerned about its attitude to privacy and perceived obsession with making money. Google's controversial new 'privacy policy' allows the search giant to 'pool' information from 60 separate services including Gmail, Google Search and Android phones, to create 'personalised' advertising.
Google ignored an international outcry to launch its new privacy policy on March 1 this year, despite concerns it may be illegal in the EU, as well as countries such as Japan and South Korea. European Union authorities said that the new privacy policy appears to violate European law, in an email to Google CEO Larry Page. A coalition of 50 consumer groups in the UK and the U.S also wrote to Page to protest against the new policy.
Meanwhile, a former Google executive - James Whittaker - even lambasted his former employer in a 1328-word blog attack recently, saying 'the Google I was passionate about was a technology company - the Google I left was an advertising company’.
For some, the environmental conditions patent reinforces his view. Naga Saravan Golla wrote on thenextweb.com: ‘That will be really annoying!’ While Wayne Smallman said: ‘What desperation. Google, you're losing it.’
However, not everyone was concerned. David Williams wrote on the site: ‘I actually appreciate targeted ads. The point is that ads are always going to be there, so why not make them only things I'm interested in for myself or my company?’
A Google spokesperson said: 'We file patent applications on a variety of ideas that our employees come up with. Some of those ideas later mature into real products or services, some don't. 'Prospective product announcements should not necessarily be inferred from our patent applications.' (3.22.2012, Ted Thornhill)
Audio 'fingerprint' for content-relevant ads
Comment The first thing that came out of our mouths when we heard that Google is working on a system that listens to what's on your TV playing in the background, and then serves you relevant adverts, was "that's cool, but dangerous".
The idea appeared in Technology Review citing Peter Norvig, director of research at Google, who says these ideas will show up eventually in real Google products - sooner rather than later.
The idea is to use the existing PC microphone to listen to whatever is heard in the background, be it music, your phone going off or the TV turned down. The PC then identifies it, using fingerprinting, and then shows you relevant content, whether that's adverts or search results, or a chat room on the subject.
And, of course, we wouldn’t put it past Google to store that information away, along with the search terms it keeps that you've used, and the web pages you have visited, to help it create a personalised profile that feeds you just the right kind of adverts/content. And given that it is trying to develop alternative approaches to TV advertising, it could go the extra step and help send "content relevant" advertising to your TV as well.
We suspect that such a world would be rather eerie, with a constant feeling of déjà vu every time anyone watched TV.
Technology Review said Google talked about this software in Europe last June, and that it breaks sound into a five-second snippets to pick out audio from a TV, reducing the snippet to a digital "fingerprint", which it matches on an internet server.
Given the furore caused when AOL released searches on the internet, there might be more than a few civil liberties activists less than happy for Google to put this idea into practice. Also, given that Google provides the software link between its search software and the microphone, it's a small step to making the same link to any webcams attached to the PC.
Pretty soon the security industry is going to find a way to hijack the Google feed and use it for full on espionage.
Google says that its fingerprinting technology makes it impossible for the company (or anyone else) to eavesdrop on other sounds in the room, such as personal conversations, because the conversion to a fingerprint is made on the PC, and a fingerprint can't be reversed, as it's only an identity.
But we should think that "spyware" might take on an extra meaning if someone less scrupulous decided on a similar piece of software.
The Google program converts sound into graphs, weeds out background noise, and reduces the graphs to key features that can then be translated into just four bytes of information, so that the fingerprints for an entire year of television programming would add up to no more than a few gigabytes, the company said.
Meanwhile, in an unconnected announcement this week, Google said it has signed a multi-year agreement with online auction giant eBay, to provide text-based advertising outside the US.
The companies also plan to launch a "click-to-call" advertising function on eBay using Skype and Google Talk.
"The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first." Thomas Jefferson