I just read and heard about Google patenting RSS advertising. The story is both on slashdot as well as The Register. Now, I am seriously wondering how we (and I say we, the web 2.0 centered folk) are going to deal with that.

If there was any doubt in anyone’s mind that RSS was going to revolutionize how people think about web content, this may be the last stone in the wall of proof. This may also confuse those who still believe Google’s PR strategy of “do no evil”. Now, I’m not saying they’re evil, because I actually kinda like their attitude as a company and corporation - but this is a move that leaves me sceptical about how they play their cards.

I’ve seen opinions that Google is protecting RSS advertising which is something they’re now starting to profit of (remember that all of Google’s profit comes from ad revenues) so they wouldn’t be forced out of the market by other (rival) companies like Yahoo or Microsoft. Still, this seems like one of the best pieces of proof why the US patent office (and remember I’m not even in the US) does a bad job and that some things should be free.

Should RSS advertising be patented? Well, I’m one of those persons that believes RSS (or syndicated content as a whole) shouldn’t be poisoned by the world of advertising. Mainly because I believe people’s tollerance for advertising (particularly obtrusive ones - which we aren’t seeing in RSS yet) is seriously decreasing. Having ads in RSS feeds undermines the notion of the web as a means to obtain information. Even if we see things from a business standpoint (and we have to particularly now that many of us are living off of the web), there are far better ways to use RSS besides advertising (mainly targeted syndication).

Are RSS ads a good thing? They may be, in tiny little circles - not for the general public. Is Google’s patent the two weeks notice announcement of a change in syndicated content? It might be, we’ll wait and find out. This does undoubtedly undermine how companies and people view RSS. The boogeyman of ads strikes the one “last” tool of the web-for-content ideology.

If ads in feeds become the norm, investments in dealing with the technology (like Microsoft’s in their upcoming Windows Vista) will probably be a little less notable. It’ll be a poisoned world after all.