Aardvark is a service that lets you ask a question, then various forms of Social Media are queried to elicit a response from a person with the answer. Basically, a social media powered search engine. Founded by former Google employees (well, former, now employees again) Google bought the company about a month or so ago. And they’ve filed for a patent.
The patent covers automated status updates when you join a service. So, for example, if I enabled the AffSpot Affiliate Marketing Forum with a couple lines of code I could have the AffSpot Facebook, Twitter, etc. drop in a status update that says “SuperAffiliate Clark Kent Just Joined AffSpot!”. And this patent (if approved) would mean that I would either need Google’s permission (or pay a license fee) in order to do this.
Perhaps the most obvious form of this is “Share This”, “Tell a Friend”, and “Refer a Friend” type links on your Affiliate Websites. Think about it. The ability for your customers to refer your affiliate sites to friends would be potentially restricted by Google. And you know just how valuable word of mouth advertising is.
You see, software and process patents are a double edged sword. And although things that are obvious (for example, the man that invented the WeedEater lost his patent because it was declared obvious that having a motor spin a string around would cut grass) are generally not patentable… Many “obvious” things in the software/process world are allowed patents. For example, “One Click Buying” at Amazon.com. Which is where the double edge of the sword comes in.
If this particular patent is approved it would be possible for Google to declare “Share this Post” and “Tell a Friend” refferal mechanisms violate their patent. Which could hinder your ability to make it easy for your customers to refer their friends to your sites/offers. And the result would be that Affiliate Marketers could lose a valuable tool and a terrific source of word of mouth advertising. It may also be that Google is just trying to protect their investment in Aardvark and that your promotional activities would just be left alone too.
Patents of this type raise serious questions for Affiliates.. And software and process patents of this nature need to be paid attention to closely.
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