HP’s web-printers to print adverts
June 17th, 2010 Posted in General, Printer Reviews, Printerland
HP’s new range of ePrint web-connected printers will include local advertising in generated content.
Remember HP’s plans to release printers with e-mail addresses? Remember the fears that spammers might circumvent security in order to print advertisements? Fear not: HP is teaming up with Yahoo to send adverts to you itself.
According to ComputerWorld, the partnership will see Yahoo providing targeted advertising to owners of HP’s web-connected printers, based on geographic location along with knowledge of the type of data printed and the users’ rough habits.
Don’t worry overly much, though – HP isn’t planning a return to the bad old days of junk faxes: although the adverts do get printed out – and thus cost the recipient real cash money – they are designed to be integrated with the company’s newspaper-like content, rather than suddenly appear on a pristine page.
The idea is simple: we’re used to seeing adverts on the web and in our newspapers, so when we’re using HP’s automated print-me-a-newspaper option to snag content from the web and transfer it to print we won’t – in theory – even notice that the adverts are there.
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