« Matt Cutts Revisits Google Rankings & Paid Links | Main | Borrell: Paid Search Rising For Autos Category »
May. 14, 2007 at 9:48am Eastern by Barry Schwartz
Google Game Ads Patent Sets Off Privacy Debate
Google may use games to analyse net users from The Guardian reports that Google is considering the idea of using gaming behavior to display targeted ads to that user. Privacy advocates are already voicing their distaste for the idea of gleaning information on users based on their gaming behaviors. To me, this is just like the Gmail ad debate, which has died down since they first launched.
Google, which is known to be interested in in game ads, has filed a patent application that Bill Slawski explains as:
Google looks at ways of determining user information for use in targeting ads, and determining and serving relevant ads in video games. They take into account a person’s interests and gaming behavior by monitoring and making inferences from their online gaming activities.
The Open Rights Group said, "I can understand why they are interested in this, but I would be deeply disturbed by a company holding a psychological profile." The Guardian explains that Google can learn a lot about a user within one of these online role playing games such as Second Life. Google would love to show ads that are relevant to the user.
The Guardian spoke with Google, which said "it did not have any plans to roll out the technology in the near future." When and if Google launches these ads, I am sure there will be a spark of controversy at the onset which will die down over time.
|
Like The Story? Vote For It On Yahoo Buzz!
Send me the monthly search newsletter too! (Learn more about our newsletters and feeds) |
Subscribe To Our Search Feed!         
|
| Share & Bookmark This Story! |
By Barry Schwartz
Permalink
Jump To Comments
See Related Stories In: Google: Other Ads, Google: Patents, Legal: Privacy
