With technology advancing at lightning speed, the day when apps will have the ability to gauge your spending prowess to direct specific adverts is not too far away.
Sounds stranger than fiction? Not. Apple could be the first to do so as the company has been awarded a patent dubbed "Method And System For Delivering Advertisements To Mobile Terminals" by the USPTO for a system that will target adverts based on the user's bank balance or a "user's profile" as Apple chooses to call it.
While you weigh in the concerns of privacy vis-à-vis handy products at your doorstep to choose from, here's what the Apple invention will be capable of: "analyze the user's available credit in order to assess the likelihood of a user being able to purchase advertised goods and/or services."
The advantage of such targeted advertising, the company believes is that they will only be delivered to users who can afford those services and goods.
This in turn would increase the probability of the common profile users responding to these adverts in a more effective manner and possibly purchasing the product or service being advertised.
The Apple patent also hints that the user profiling will be on the basis of the "amount of pre-paid credit" that each user has available.
So basically, depending on your credit card or debit limit, Apple would push a particular commercial in your direction. If you cannot afford the product you will not see the ad.
While such a system may make for streamlined and relevant advertising, many people could feel sidelined at such a class-system coming into place. One may not have the buying power but could always window shop right?
The Apple patent's notion may be futuristic, but it is clear that the company is looking to monetize despite not being in favor of the philosophy earlier.
"They're gobbling up everything they can learn about you and trying to monetize it," noted Cook earlier this year, referring to its rivals who are ad-driven. "We think that's wrong. And it's not the kind of company that Apple wants to be."
If the patent is anything to go on, Cook may have to eat his own words soon.
Photo: Sharon & Nikki McCutcheon | Flickr
