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Apple Patent That Could Mess With Data Profilers a Good Sign

24.06.2012
Apple's patent for techniques that would make data profiling more difficult foreshadows a possible future in which at least one big business sides with consumers and fights against the increasingly bothersome and widespread practice.

It's a beautiful thought for Internet, computer and mobile users worried about the troublesome profiling of consumer data that's so rampant.

spotted the patent called "Techniques to pollute electronic profiling," which would presumably allow for systematic lying to data-harvesting servers.

"So let's say you're in California, and you use your Mac to visit Amazon and use your VISA card to buy the book Animal Farm by George Orwell," Elgan wrote. "Apple's patent implies that these data harvesters would be lied to -- for example, told that you're in Kansas on a Linux PC using your AMEX (with a fake number) to buy the book 'Cooking with Pooh.'"

He points out the disturbing fact that the future is one in which it could be impossible to keep your personal data from being harvested.

In February, Charles Duhigg wrote for The New York Times titled "How Companies Learn Your Secrets" that singled out Target and its ability to determine if a woman is most likely pregnant.