Google is looking to snag itself a bigger chunk of a major technological driving force - the adult entertainment market - with a patent on pornography search technologies.
The patent, issued to Google yesterday and entitled 'system and methods for detecting images distracting to a user,' seems innocent at first glance. The abstract describes it thus: "The method includes monitoring the behavior of a user with respect to a group of images that are related in some manner to a query, and using the monitored behavior to calculate the distractiveness of a particular image."
Digging deeper into the patent, however, Google's real aim becomes clear: making it easier to search for pornography on the Internet.
"It is to be appreciated by those skilled in the art," the patent claims, "that, with relation to Internet search engines, the most selected links tend to be pornographic in nature.
"Just as with humorous images, the user tends to select pornographic images out of curiosity. Thus, the most distracting images tend to be pornographic in nature.
"Instead of measuring the selection rate across all independent queries or query classes, the selection rate across all non-pornographic queries can be used to measure distractiveness score.
"This takes into account that, when a pornographic query is used, pornographic images are sought. One skilled in the art can, within their own experience, surmise what a pornographic query is."
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http://www.thinq.co.uk/2011/1/26/goo...#ixzz1Ce21GGPi