As Facebook has been granted the patent for it’s top social networking feature, the newsfeed, Google at the same time has been trying to protect its own top feature. The latest patent that looks to have been awarded to Google appears to give it exclusive rights to the provision of geo-targeted advertisements.
The patent itself is fairly wide ranging and appears to apply to any method of geo-targeting where information is used to choose which ads to serve. The patent also covers the adaptation of existing advertising, such as Google AdWords, to include location specific information. The new patent distinguishes between Google’s current location based targeting and keyword matching, from which most of its current search ad revenue relies upon.
This could have major ramifications for larger websites with international scope, such as Huffington Post or The New York Times whom rely on geo-targeting to maximise revenue from global traffic.
Recent research suggests that Google already controls more than 50% of all ad serving on the internet and this patent could potentially be a massive blow to the online advertising industry as it currently stands.
As location based services (such as geo-targeting) and targeted advertising becoming more and more important to online business, this could pose a big problem for the industry if Google decided to act on any patent infringements.
