Google has been granted the U.S. patent for “determining and/or using location information in an ad system.” The patent was filed back in September 2003 but was granted just last week. Full story here.
This will affect lots of companies from the likes of FourSquare, BrightKite, Gowalla, and sellers of high volume traffic inventory such as media buying companies.
This is a huge coup for Google and gives them extra ‘bully-boy’ points to smack their competitors around. I am not keen at all on the thought of google holding the patent to this. Expect trouble to come of this because advertisers (and consumers) will eventually pay for this ridiculous decision by the U.S. courts. Full story here.
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