Google patents weather-based ads - Telegraph A web browser or search engine located at the user's site may obtain information on the environment (e.g. temperature, humidity, light, sound, air composition) from sensors. Google also patented the idea of analysing the background noise when a user makes a call to target advertising. For instance, the system could detect if a user is at a concert and determine which by via their GPS location. It would then deliver advertising for albums, instruments, or audio equipment. Observers said the patent was reminiscent of Minority Report, in which Tom Cruise in besieged by highly target advertising on the streets of a dystopian city. "Not content with collecting vast amounts of information from your online activities, it seems Google are looking to start exploiting the offline space as well," Gus Hosein of Privacy International told the BBC. Patents like this may never come to fruition, but they force us to ask ourselves: how many aspects of our lives will advertisers try to exploit, and where will it end? Google makes almost all its income from web ads targeted on the basis of what users type into search, the contents of the web pages they view and records of their interests.