New Google Patent to Track Users’ Emotional Response to Ads

Google’s latest patent discloses something that was to be expected. Google is planning to add ads to Google Glass and they’re going to do it in a totally new and unique way. We don’t know if they’re going to make it an ad-supported device, like some of Amazon Kindle’s version, or they’re only doing it for the developers in order to monetize their apps. But what we know is that Google is going to see how the user reacts to those ads.

By using their newly patented algorithm, Google is able to see how targeted the ads are to the user and this way it can price them. Advertisers whose ads get bad reactions from users will cost more than the others. It’s a pricing system similarly to the one used on the web. Here Google relies on CTR ( click-through rate ) and other user actions in order to sort the ads. The more relevant an ad is for a user, the cheaper it will be for the advertiser. This system is, in theory, a win-win-win, for the advertiser, publisher and the user. Advertisers who deliver relevant, interesting ads, will pay less, the publishers will earn more and keep their users happy, and, of course, the users will be happier for seeing relevant ads.

The Google Glass ad algorithm could prove to be even more successful than the web-based one, because the device sees the actual user reactions, which is a much easier way to find out if the user likes or dislikes the ad.

And this algorithm goes even further and can see how much did the ad manage to affect the user emotionally, by measuring his pupil dilatation.

According to Google, the advertiser will be able to see how users react to his ads, but it will be totally anonymous and all personal-identifying data will be removed, which was to be expected.

Something we can just imagine at the moment, but isn’t included in the patent, is that Google could even track the users emotions to TV ads. Considering that Google is an always on device, it could see what the user’s watching and see how it reacts to specific TV ads. Further more it could provide a service to TV stations to create a similar pricing as its planning to do for Google Glass.

To those who worry about ads that might track their emotions and feeling, calm down, at least for the moment. Companies submit patents on a daily basis, but this doesn’t mean Google is going to implement this very soon. Actually, they might not use this at all. When you’re a company Google’s size, you can afford to patent every crazy idea, just to be sure you’ll be safe to use it if you’re ever going to use it. But you have to admin that you’d prefer to see ads that you enjoy instead of totally irrelevant and spammy ads.