This is starting to get a little spooky.

The patent also notes that hovering over a OneBox result might be a signal to Google that there's value in presenting that particular OneBox within the results.

The patent was filed a couple of years before Google implemented Universal Search, but if they were to use this kind of mouse pointer tracking, it's possible that it could be used for all kinds of vertical results interleavened within web results as well.

I guess it is a little spooky, but not really. I know in other areas Google has done some pretty spooky and outright stupid stuff.

One thing I have always loved about them and continue to praise them for is their search results. More specifically the relevance of their results to me.

Most tricks they employ to make results more relevant I am for as long as it isn't recording things I have an expectation of privacy on. I don't think of my mouse over and mouse placement as something I would expect to be private.

I hope they can take into account random noise.

My habit of making lassos with the cursor while things load probably won't be too useful in any clicking metrics.

Is there a link to go with the original quote?

Whoa, I had a link I thought.

Here it is
[techeye.net...]

I was thinking the same thing about the bored mouse movement.