
George Orwell never dreamed of advertising as invasive as Yahoo’s proposal - jonbaer
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/10/yahoo-wants-to-patent-billboards-that-spy-on-the-public-for-targeted-ads/
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11thEarlOfMar
I am already enjoying benefits of grouplization. Real-time traffic is
monitored via millions of smart phone GPS and Inertial sensors. The data (may
or may not be satisfactorily) anonymized, and analyzed and sent back to my
smartphone to make route decisions when commuting.

But its a slippery slope that consumers slide down over and over. I recall
days gone by where SUN Microsystems engineers engaged in heated debate about
caller ID and whether that was too much an invasion of privacy. Then, they
argued that online sales would never take off because of the weakness of
Internet security.

Yahoo's patent application seems to me to be a natural outcome, once our
smartphones are outfitted with so much sensing capability. Be outraged, but
don't be surprised.

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userbinator
...and this is the opponent's technology:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8925019](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8925019)

