A report by The Guardian newspaper in the UK has suggested that Google has plans to collect information about online gamers to profile their preferences and personality type to use this for advertising. This is taken from one of the many patents Google files in Europe and the US for possible development work and has created some concern amongst privacy campaigners.

Google would use this information to target advertising to these gamers, but may also want to compile more information on online user profiles for their AdWords programme, to match the type of profiling data that is being offered by Microsoft's adCenter PPC programme, which uses Hotmail and other MSN service's information. Google doesn't yet have this level of information to access, although personalised search and other data collections could be the answer for them.