If you happen to’ve ever felt like Fb was actually listening to your conversations, you are actually not going to love its latest thought.

A patent revealed Thursday particulars how Fb may place focused promoting inside of personal conversations in Messenger. The corporate has allowed companies to run advertisements in its messaging app for a while, however has stopped wanting putting advertisements inside customers’ personal conversations.

The patent software, nonetheless, suggests the corporate could also be eager about considerably escalating the quantity of promoting in its chat software.

The appliance, which was filed in April as a continuation of a 2015 submitting however simply made public, describes methods through which companies may use location knowledge and the content material of conversations to floor focused advertisements instantly in customers’ chats through a “plug-in.” The patent software was granted in Might.

The advertisements would come through a “plug-in,” which might permit individuals to make use of different providers inside Messenger, reminiscent of video games or ride-hailing providers (each of that are options Fb Messenger has beforehand launched.)

However, in line with the submitting, these so-called plug-ins would additionally permit the app to floor focused commercials based mostly on the textual content of your dialog and even your location knowledge. Fb Messenger already incorporates many third-party providers in its app, however has not allowed them to floor advertisements in personal conversations.

In a single illustration described within the submitting, an individual messaging a pal a few journey to the Grand Canyon may set off an advert for Grand Canyon postcards. Along with key phrases, these advertisements may additionally depend on location knowledge from both particular person’s telephones, in line with the outline (emphasis added):

(“Bob”) is at present on the Grand Canyon in Arizona and is speaking with the primary consumer 305 (his pal Alice), who’s in San Jose, Calif. The plug-in 114 inside Alice’s supplemented occasion 111A would possibly use, as tailoring knowledge, the content material of the communication thread between the 2 customers, reminiscent of textual key phrases “Grand Canyon” within the textual message 671A, or “San Jose” within the textual message 671B. The tailoring knowledge may additionally embrace geolocation knowledge (e.g., GPS coordinates) of Alice’s consumer machine, or of Bob’s consumer machine (as supplied by Bob’s consumer machine

Fb, like different tech corporations, steadily patents new concepts, not all of which make their manner into the corporate’s merchandise.

“We regularly search patents for know-how we by no means implement, and patent functions – like this one which was filed over 4 years in the past – shouldn’t be taken as a sign of future plans,” a Fb spokesperson stated in a press release. They later added: “We don’t have any plans to put advertisements in conversations between individuals.”

However the fling, which bears the title of Fb’s engineering director for Messenger, signifies a method the corporate may ramp up its promoting efforts because it makes an attempt to refocus its service round personal messaging. CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated earlier this yr he plans to re-orient the corporate’s providers round personal messaging and encryption.

If Fb had been to put advertisements in personal conversations, nonetheless, it might seemingly set off large privateness considerations. Many customers already imagine that Fb’s apps actually hearken to their real-life conversations to serve them advertisements. That concept has been repeatedly debunked, however inserting advertisements into personal chats would nonetheless seemingly additional gas mistrust of the corporate, which simply agreed to pay a $5 billion positive to the FTC for privateness violations and drive up a brand new wave of anger amongst customers.

UPDATE: Aug. 1, 2019, 5:14 p.m. PDT This publish has been up to date to incorporate a press release from Fb and to make clear software and publication particulars concerning the patent.

UPDATE: Aug. 1, 2019, 6:15 p.m. PDT This publish has been up to date with an extra remark from Fb.