Hacker News Reader

Comment by JoshMnem | Hacker News Reader

Yesterday, I saw an article[1] about Amazon's plans to block websites in their stores (a very bad thing) and was wondering when a company like Google was going to launch a VPN service. I wonder if these things will meet in the long term. If companies that control the network try to limit access to information about their competitors, then their competitors might try to liberate that information.

[1] http://gizmodo.com/just-in-time-amazon-patents-method-to-pre...

View on HN

Google has a VPN service fyi. When you connect to a non secure network there's an option to proxy all traffic through a free Google VPN.

http://www.androidpolice.com/2016/09/14/wifi-assistant-can-s...

To a Google-approved Wi-Fi network.

One of the more interesting insights from the comments (which I agree with) was that the Amazon patent was for defensive purposes in order to prevent other companies from trying to implement such an idea in their stores.

I have never given much thought to the idea of defensive patents, but if this is truly the intent of Amazon's patent then it's brilliant.

Interesting. "Let's block those who would block comparison shopping" certainly makes more free-market sense than "let's block comparison shopping."

blush that was the intent.

Look up Macrovision (VHS copy protection from the 20th century). They came up with the scheme, then patented every way they could think of to break it.

Not a lawyer, but wouldn't that be challengeable in court? I see the ethics of it, but maybe legally it falls in the same bucket as patent trolls that hold on a patent with no intention of ever commercializing it.

I thought the whole problem with patent trolls was that holding a patent with no intent of commercializing it was perfectly legal.

Maybe a combination of defensive and opportunistic.

This should be seen as a defensive move so they can sue anyone who comes to market with a product that blocks the shopper's ability to search Amazon while in a given store.

Showrooming benefits Amazon and will continue to until they have a majority of retail space (never).

Back in the day, the one-click patent was claimed to be defensive, too.

These decisions tend to be opportunistic. Or maybe a holder honestly convinces themselves that this particular offensive use is really a "defensive" move.

I give these sorts of declarations the same value I give crime-law proposals where someone pushing it declares that it would never be used in that way.

A link, for reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1-Click#Barnes_.26_Noble

I'm the one who wrote that patent (sorry).

Amazon or Google? One hour ago you posted that you're "a Director at Google". https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14597662

It's plausible that they changed jobs ;).

bingo

I see -- I thought the patent was new. I'd ask you why you wrote a patent that allows large companies to block the open flow of online information (considering that it might prompt other companies to block information in different, but similar, ways), but I'm guessing that you won't be able to talk about it.

If you are a good guy, getting a patent for X may help you prevent bad guys from using X.

Also if you don't patent X, somebody else might and then figure out a away to use it against you.

News sites too often write the patent articles in the form "company A plans to do Z" when the only fact available is that company A has applied a patent for Z. There's an incentive for a company to patent pretty much everything they can, since besides the patenting costs, there's no downside I'm aware of in having extra patents. The costs are probably negligible on Google/Amazon scale and when you have good processes.

Amazon uses them offensively, so that argument probably doesn't apply in this case. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1-Click#Barnes_.26_Noble

That's a patent, there is no indication Amazon has any plans to do such a thing.

I know -- that's why I used the phrase "long-term". :)

I probably shouldn't have used the word "plans" though, since I don't know for sure if they will implement it.

They very well could have patented it to prevent anyone else from doing it - which seems more likely.

Amazon employees are encouraged to patent basically anything, at least in AWS. Validity of content or relevance to future business plans isn't really a factor.

It's probably a combination of defensive and opportunistic. Companies stake out positions and then watch how the winds blow.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com