Everyone hates printers. They don’t ever work properly and the whole thing just feels rotten and expensive. So everyone should be thrilled to learn that Hewlett-Packard is planning to team up with Yahoo, notably getting on-board with a program that will deliver targeted adverts for stuff printed with the latest line of web-connected printers.

HP have launched some printers last week that are connected to the web which allows users to print content directly from a website or send pages from their phones to a remote printer using an e-mail address specific to said device. In addition to this, there’s also a program called “scheduled delivery” which basically means that, should you wish, you can set a timer up in the morning and your printer will blurt out portions of your daily newspaper in time for you getting up. Sounds entirely pointless doesn’t it?

HP’s ePrint printers (available next month) are connected to your router and your IP address can be used to identify where in the world you are, so localised adverts can be slung your way.

With all this, HP is eyeing up the pennies by allowing targeted ads to go along with the content. They’ve been running trials where consumers received content from a music rag and a newspaper along with advertisements.

Stephen Nigro, senior vice president in HP’s Imaging and Printing Group reckons: “What we discovered is that people were not bothered by it [an advertisement]. You’re used to seeing things with ads.”

While that may be true, this’ll eat the ink in your cartridges and most people don’t want to pay for the printing out of stuff when they’re trying to make you part with even more cash. The targeted ads could invariably centre around people needing to buy more black ink.

[ComputerWorld]