Skip to main content

Microsoft patents the super cookie

On May 02, the USPTO awarded Microsoft a patent for tracking usage behavior in computer systems. Similar to what's known as web beacons and domain cookies, Microsoft's new patent describes ways to track users through invisible images and tiny cookies.

US Patent 7039699, as it is formally known, will provide developers with an Application Program Interface (API) which can be called from languages such as JavaScript, ASP, and VBScript. The permanent cookie can contain four data types consisting of bits, counters, dates, and strings. In the patent description, Microsoft also notes that the cookie is flexible enough to allow for new data types in the future. But boring technical details aside, what is Microsoft's goal with the patent? Nothing but the obvious.

Using the information found in the domain cookie, Internet content sites will have the opportunity to determine those user behaviors observed in particular segments of the Internet content sites that may be helpful to differentiate the user when visiting each of those segments. Moreover, with the use of the domain cookie, Internet content providers are given an opportunity to determine those behaviors that are observed in a particular segment of the Internet content sites that may be helpful to differentiate the user when visiting other segments of the Internet content sites.

Need an example?

For example, the following user behaviors on the MSN network may easily be recorded to assist Internet content providers to enhance a user's experience: Did the customer ever buy a plane ticket on EXPEDIA.MSN.COM (an Internet content site dedicated to selling airline products and services)? What was the destination of the journey? Does the customer have a Hotmail (Internet based centralized e-mail) account? How many times did the customer visit MSN.COM? Based on this information, MSN web sites will be able to render more relevant content for a given user and to provide customized content in accordance with behavioral data that has been collected about the user, and/or a user's preferences. Customized content may range from targeted advertising, to special limited services.

That's the patent in a nutshell. To me, it doesn't seem very original since web developers have been using what are essentially cookies for years. Even if Microsoft did slide some new ideas into the mix (the end of the Claims has some originality), I still have trouble seeing how this was granted. Microsoft now owns the rights to the "cookie on steroids."

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Does light have mass?

The short answer is "no", but it is a qualified "no" because there are odd ways of interpreting the question which could justify the answer "yes". Light is composed of photons so we could ask if the photon has mass. The answer is then definitely "no": The photon is a massless particle. According to theory it has energy and momentum but no mass and this is confirmed by experiment to within strict limits. Even before it was known that light is composed of photons it was known that light carries momentum and will exert a pressure on a surface. This is not evidence that it has mass since momentum can exist without mass. [ For details see the Physics FAQ article What is the mass of the photon? ]. Sometimes people like to say that the photon does have mass because a photon has energy E = hf where h is Planck's constant and f is the frequency of the photon. Energy, they say, is equivalent to mass according to Einstein's famous formula E = m...
6 comments
Read more

Play against Xbox360 gamer on PC in Vista

Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates on Tuesday announced a cross-platform gaming service that integrates games played on cell phones, Xbox 360 consoles and the upcoming Windows Vista operating system. The "Live Anywhere" service will be available as part of Windows Vista, Microsoft's next-generation PC operating system. The consumer version is scheduled for release early next year. "It means that you have one online community," Gates said in a news conference. "This platform can really unleash developers to do amazing new things." The system would extend the company's existing Xbox Live service for the Xbox 360 console into millions of Internet-enabled PCs and cellular phones. No pricing information on the new service was announced. In recent months, Microsoft has been pushing a number of online services that it hopes will boost revenue as markets for its traditional software become increasingly saturated. The company expects to make money off s...
9 comments
Read more

Microsoft shows off JPEG rival

If it is up to Microsoft, the omnipresent JPEG image format will be replaced by Windows Media Photo. The software maker detailed the new image format Wednesday at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference here. Windows Media Photo will be supported in Windows Vista and also be made available for Windows XP, Bill Crow, program manager for Windows Media Photo said in a presentation. "One of the biggest reasons people upgrade their PCs is digital photos," Crow said, noting that Microsoft has been in contact with printer makers, digital camera companies and other unnamed industry partners while working on Windows Media Photo. Microsoft touts managing "digital memories" as one of the key attributes of XP successor Vista. In his presentation, Crow showed an image with 24:1 compression that visibly contained more detail in the Windows Media Photo format than the JPEG and JPEG 2000 formats compressed at the same level. Still, the image in the Microsoft form...
1 comment
Read more