Microsoft Data Mining Patent
Microsoft thinks that you are worth a million dollars! And because of that fact Bill Gates, Ray Ozzie and many of the other executives at Microsoft have been issued a patent that allows then to mine your personal data.
This recent patent (okay, the application for the patent was filed in September 2006) that was awarded this week basically layout a system for collecting your personal information. What this “personal data mining” system does is examine your actions and interests based on what they have observed you and others that fall into your category doing. This will allow them to make targeted suggestions. This could be in the form of recommendations on which books to read, movies to see or restaurants to eat at.
While this isn’t much different than what a lot of other companies have been doing, it goes beyond simply making contextually targeted plugs.
As the name implies, it is a method to mine your personal data. As per the patent this includes your:
“personal management information (PIM data), pictures, videos, documents, e-mail, instant messages, addresses, calendar dates/scheduling information (e.g., birthdays, anniversaries, appointments . . . ), voice mail, phone logs, RSS feeds, subscriptions, bookmarks, mail lists, project management features, computing device data, tasks and location data.”
Basically everything that is linked to you falls into this catch all system and it is as good as gold.
The patent also talks about the option to “include a monetization component”. What does this mean? It means you might just land in “an auction to sell information to the highest bidder.”
If you have any interest in reading through the full patent application, you can find it here.
This reminds me of the patent application that Steve Jobs recently filed for OS Advertisement.
