Google Patents Targeted Advertising in Phone Calls

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victorintelr

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so inthe near future you won't receive calls offering a service, but while you make calls you get the ad...... kinda reminds me of the episode in futurama where you even get ads in dreams...... yeah, that's where we are heading.
 

Marcus52

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We need laws to limit the amount of advertising we receive in a day. It's just too much. Out of an hour of television, 17 minutes goes to commercials - that's prime time networks, others are worse. Radio? Worse. Ads all over the internet pages you see (at least I can control that to a large degree, which I do for security reasons and load times more than number of ads.)

Ads when you do a search. I think one of the reason Google became pretty much just another search engine that works no better than any other is that they started chasing the dollar too hard. (I know you've worked to clean up the mess to some degree Google, but what have you done to make it worse?)

Ads when you open your eReader, ads on your smart phone, your tablet.

Billboards. Huge, flashing, tasteless signs on businesses.

Junk mail. Newspapers. Magazines.

The ads are terrible and have no sense of morality or ethics, too. "You should buy this new car because your kid is embarrassed that you drive an old car. (I've actually sworn to myself I'll never buy a Toyota because of that series of ads.)" "You should buy these pet food snacks because they are the "the only way" your pet knows you love it." "Our American luxury car handles like an Italian sports car because it has the same suspension (implied)."

I wonder what the emotional and psychological burden of all this advertisement does to the people who have grown up with it their entire lives, to the degree it exists today. Especially if you are from a poor and struggling background, how do you find hope to be the kind of person that can afford all these things you are supposed to be able to buy?

How can you grow up with a sense of respect and accomplishment as a society when you are lied to and emotionally blackmailed every few minutes of your life? How do you expect kids to respect their parents? Each other?

Many advertisers, like many politicians, either have no clue the harm they do, or don't care. It's a shame we should even have to think about passing laws to protect ourselves from them, but I think it's way passed time we establish some minimums of decency and maximums of quantity. It's so mindlessly ridiculous that we ban a few words of expression from public airways, but allow the advertising quality of our businesses to become a stinking cesspool of lies and manipulations.

Passing laws to regulate people is, in my opinion, something we shouldn't have to do, and be very reluctant to do, but we clearly have to tell some people where to stop and give ourselves the power to stop them if they won't.
 

Haserath

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[citation][nom]victorintelr[/nom]so inthe near future you won't receive calls offering a service, but while you make calls you get the ad...... kinda reminds me of the episode in futurama where you even get ads in dreams...... yeah, that's where we are heading.[/citation]
I don't see a problem with this.

All hail Google...
 

matt_b

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The ringback patent grants Google the (patent) right of placing audio ads in phone calls before a call is being answered or when a call is on hold.
Let me guess, with this big "let's tie everything together" deal, your Google account will monitor your web browsing activity, then present you with a relevant ad during said placed phone call segments - close??? Google was the hip an cool thing several years ago but this company is becoming the one to keep an eye on from the sneaky and intrusive behavior these past couple years. It's unclear to me at least what their ultimate goals are, but add this idea to the "no thanks" column.
 

Max Collodi

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[citation][nom]ankaj[/nom]Great... another reason I will hate calling people in the future[/citation]
I hate calling people in the future now. The airtime charges are ridiculous or at least they will be once I receive my bill in the future.
 

livebriand

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Oh great, more fucking ads? You do realize that ads make me hate companies far more than anything else, right? For instance, I got an 1000 page catalog from some company who I've never bought anything from, and I didn't ask for the catalog. Guess what? I'm pretty sure that I'll NEVER, EVER, E V E R buy anything from that company because of it. I run an adblocker on my computers, I don't watch TV (and when I do I use netflix or OTA programming and a DVR), I don't read magazines (I read the it online for free, with an adblocker), I hardly see billboards (maybe that's just because of where I live), if I hear a radio ad I immediately change the station, and I try hard to ignore print ads (and succeed). Yeah, these companies' strategy of shoving ads up my ass is failing... HARD...
 

Onus

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If I had to listen to an ad when calling someone, I might be inclined to call up the advertiser immediately thereafter to tell them I will NEVER buy from them because they decided to use an obnoxious, intrusive advertising method.
http://www.storyofstuff.com/movies-all/story-of-stuff/ can be nitpicked half to death, which would miss the point entirely.

 

pclee

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This has been going on in other countries for some time. Perhaps Google's real plan is to sue those companies in other countries that are now violating this patent....or it was an underhanded attempt by Google to patent it in the US before overseas companies could get the US patent. Or...those overseas companies are working hand in hand with Google to make profit for all.
 

theshadow2001

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Here's a little quote from the wikipedia entry of the unofficial google motto

"Don't be evil" is the informal corporate motto (or slogan) of Google,[1] originally suggested by Google employees Paul Buchheit[2] and Amit Patel[3] at a meeting. Buchheit, the creator of Gmail, said he "wanted something that, once you put it in there, would be hard to take out," adding that the slogan was "also a bit of a jab at a lot of the other companies, especially our competitors, who at the time, in our opinion, were kind of exploiting the users to some extent."

Google has turned from a creative tech company to an invasive corporate monster
 

zak_mckraken

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Chill out guys. That patent is for an advertisement program for Google Voice. No one is gonna put ads in your regular phone/cell phone calls. Google Voice is a free service, so it's a good way for them to keep the service free.
 
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