Palm’s location-based advertising patent likely sheds light on background location reporting in webOS
Remember last month when a developer revealed some hidden functionality in webOS that periodically reports a user’s location back to Palm? Well as it turns out, the reasoning behind the Big Brother-esque move may be even worse than you think. Drum roll please… Location-based advertising. We’ve uncovered a patent application filed by Palm in November of last year that could end up being one of the worst things to happen to webOS since its birth. As described within the application itself, the patent “provides a method and system thereof that can be used to more effectively target advertisements and other services to users of wireless communication devices.” More from the patent description:
Based upon the location data from the appointment and the location of device 310 (or other alternative location provided by the user), processor 340 may then provide advertisement data (step 386), for example, along the driving route between the location of the appointment and the current location of device 310 within a predetermined distance of the location of the appointment and/or the current location of device 310, and so on.
In other words, the system will keep tabs on your location in order to serve ads that will theoretically get you to spend money on the spot. Why not stop off for a coffee in this Starbucks? How about a tasty Angus Third Pounder from the McDonald’s down the block? But wait, it gets worse. Palm’s concept goes even further to pull appointment information out of your calendar in order to serve contextual ads based on your destination location in addition to your current location. While this concept is pretty brilliant, it’s also remarkably invasive and frankly, a bit frightening. Is the future of mobile advertising a gross invasion of our privacy?
Thanks, Darnell!
Well, Palms gunna have to figure out how to get out of the red because this Prē isn’t going to be a game changer… Not impressed with the build of the phone… WebOS rocks, but the build of the device sucks… I don’t understand why they kept this a secret instead of trying to pawn this off as a feature for developers and such. That would have at least kept the “they’re selling our location to Messiah Obama” critisizm to a minimum.
Posted from BGR Mobile (iPhone) at: Findlay North America
Will I EVER buy one of these with that POS inside it No F…ing way I won’t.
My big worry now is that all the other OS manufacturers will try to get around the patent (thank goodness they patented it!) and do the same thing.
THE LAST THING WE NEED IS TARGETTED ADVERTISEMENTS.
Go drop down a hole with that one Palm – and stay there.
the build quality does suck…tons of issues
battery life blows….what would you expect with a 1150 mah battery, shame on palm, they knew the battery life would suck.
Who cares instead of yall posting news about cdma htc hero pics or the iphone app that was voted the best on a a microsoft campus yall post bs like this.
Iphone users have the neve to say build qualtiy sucks atleast my fucking pre has not caught on fucking fire! Who gives a shit about the hardware when the fuckin os is so amazing. Every phone has issues plain and simple, I wanna hear what yall have to say when the hardware is topnotch and the os is improved.
the pre hasn’t caught on fire because they’ve only sold 489 of them. the webos is nice but try googling palm pre problems. it has more issues than most phones.
The fuck? Who the hell cares about a cdma hero or a damn iPhone app? This is huge news idiot — Palm is trying to bank of customer locations without them knowing about it and you want BGR to report on a damn iPhone app that won some lame ass prize? Fuckin rookie…
This is the wave of the future for advertising. As long as its an opt-in service, this is a good thing for palm.
This is the wave of the future for advertising. As long as its an opt-in service, this is a good thing for palm.
It says nothing about the consumer not knowing about it. If anyone has watched a movie in the last 25 years, you would know that this is not a new idea. Remember Tom Cruise had his eyes monitored for advertisement? This is the future of this business. Better get ready.
Seriously People?
They’re going to put adverts in the phone whether you like it or not.
Do you want adverts that are irrelevant, or adverts that are actually useful?
So, for the unintelligent one that says they have only sold 489, your just an idiot. Our 12 military kiosks have already gone through that many by themselves. The phone has its positives and negatives, this is one of the big negatives for me. Web companies have been doing this for years with tracking cookies, and a ton of other opitons. My brother-in-law makes a living working for a company that does nothing but this for major companies. Most websites tracks what you click on. It is how they talor their marketing.
> …Our 12 military kiosks have already gone through
> that many by themselves…
12 retail outlets have only sold 500 Pres!? Yikes!
> …Most websites tracks what you click on…
True, however what those websites have on you is your IP address (that usually changes over (long) time).
Palm has EVERYTHING on you.
Big difference.
@Fresh2death618,
Dude, I have a Prē for work and an iPhone 3GS for my personal phone… webos is great… The build of the Prē is awful… Don’t judge unless you know the audience…
Posted from BGR Mobile (iPhone) at: Findlay North America
@Gauntlet Down,
Agreed… Plus I’d find it pretty shady/dangerous to have something like this feature on the GSM version on one of our Armed Forces for the simple fact that if someone could get their hands on this location information while in combat… Radical? Maybe! But still, we need to take every precaution tech warfare is coming… This isn’t a comforting feature for my future wife who’s serving in the Army… Definetly wouldn’t want her in Iraq or Afghanistan with a device that is involuntarily recording her location at random times…
Posted from BGR Mobile (iPhone) at: Findlay North America
The sooner Palm dies the better IMHO. I’m tired of dealing with their garbage on a daily basis, and when anyone asks me what I think of the Pre I tell them its a straight up piece of shit.
They usually end up buying a Blackberry after that, lmao.
@anonymousTSR – hmmm…are troops allowed to carry cellphones on (very active) duty?
I sure hope not!
Palm’s deal with the devil-esque OS is finally starting to come back and haunt them. More and more things are making this whole thing look too good to be true. They may have saved themselves from going under with a great OS, but it seems like it’s just polarizing the consumer more than ever. I’ve used palm for 10 years…but where’s that Hero?
ummm.. who cares?
every company does this… gee don’t you notice when you’re surfing on a real computer that ads pop up locally?
everyone shut up and stop your complaining.
For a first gen device, the device is solid. What.. no other phone company has had minor issues with a first gen device? for crap sakes take your head out of your ass people.
Ok, that´s a definite deal breaker – no WebOS phone for me, ever. I guess I´ll wait for the hackalicious Nokia N900.
Palm can shovel it.
I am a very happy Palm Pre owner, and this is not good news to me
I hope they have an opption to turn it off and wonder how there going to get the adds to you? Will it be a text message and if so who will pay for it? I’m on sprint and have unlimited txt. But that might not be the case for others.
With that said, in hopes that they let you turn it off, its not such a bad idea. I mean if my calendar has lunch set for 12:00pm and webOS can see that and see where I am, then go and calculate what’s around me and send me adds with coupons in them…..welll that could save some money
“you know like 15mins before my lunch get an add for and extra $5 off a pizza around the corner, just show your pre” that would rock, and it wouldn’t feel like I’m being watched as much as I’m more of in a club “The Palm Pre Money Savers” and I bet it would be a feture the iphone would want to pick up rather quikly.
Also I know all you iphone fanboys like to talk your mess. that includes you BGR. But that’s because you know that webOS makes the iphone look like its still in BETA……otherwise why would you evan care? You hate because you
This follow-up is as weak as the original story. The opt out is still there
Oh goody, we get to pay additional data fees for uploaded location data and for downloaded ad data.
It’s kinda like in the movie “Brazil”, where the accused has to pay the government for being arrested and prosecuted.
This feature is scary. It should have been offered as an app. Then the user could use it at their discretion. If I have an appointment that is a private matter and is in my calendar. Do I want the world, especially total strangers to know. I think not! If I have plans for a quiet dinner and a movie, do I want suggestions.
This was a jerk move by Palm. Let’s face it. People complain that Apple didn’t make the iPhone open and, Palm swung for the fence. Both makers are equally sticking it to us. Their making decisions on devices that we pay a lot to own and use.
Apple allows this in apps at the users discretion.
By The Way, the iPhone has at least 3 location based coupon apps that I use and love. My wife and daughter call me the ‘coupon king’ LOL
Posted from BGR Mobile (iPhone) at: Richmond North America
Let’s go down a partial list:
Where,
Yelp,
Citysearch,
Good Food.
These are some apps I’ve triedand removed.
Why? Because they seemed to pass by things I were looking for and wanted to push other placed.
I got a strong feeling these were pushing add.
Add based on my location.
Something very similar to this patent I’d say without reading the whole thing.
The phone is already doing location based add let’s not get our shorts in a bunch.
Now if the add just pop-ups in the middle of a text or there’s a banner than I’ll start whining.
This could be a good patent for Palm.
Think of all the infringment (:
Kind like Apples Multi-touch patent.