METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR MATCHING BUYERS AND SELLERS IN AN ANONYMOUS ONLINE MARKETPLACE

• US 20080294681A1
• Filed: 05/21/2008
• Published: 11/27/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 05/21/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: CS Technology
• Original Assignee: CS Technology
• Inventors: Blessing, Peter Barrett, Caputo, Robert Charles, Rosato, John Patrick
• Granted Patent: US 8,095,377 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/063 Operations research, analysis or management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0224 based on user history
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/08 Auctions

Abstract

In one embodiment, the present invention is a method and apparatus for matching buyers and sellers in an anonymous online marketplace. One embodiment of a method for defining a community of network users includes collecting data relating to the network users, where the data is of at least one of the following types: demographic information relating to the network users, Internet Protocol address information relating to the network users, and Internet Protocol traffic information relating to the network users. The collected data is then anonymized, where the anonymizing is performed individually for each type of data. The anonymized data is aggregated to generate an activity-to-demographic mapping representative of network activity associated with particular demographics of the community of network users.

Claims

1. A method for defining a community of network users, comprising:

collecting data relating to at least one network user, where the data is of a type comprising at least one of;

demographic information relating to the at least one user, Internet Protocol address information relating to the at least one user, and Internet Protocol traffic information relating to the at least one user;

anonymizing the data to generate anonymized data, where the anonymizing is performed individually for each type of data;

aggregating the anonymized data to generate an activity-to-demographic mapping representative of network activity associated with particular demographics of the community of network users; and

outputting the activity-to-demographic mapping.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the community of network users comprises one or more employees of an enterprise.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the demographic information comprises at least one of:

a username used by the at least one network user in a corporate network, a location of the at least one network user, a job title of the at least one network user, a sex of the at least one network user, and an age of the at least one network user.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the demographic information is collected from a human resources system associated with an enterprise.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the Internet Protocol address information comprises:

an Internet Protocol address of the at least one network user and a username to which the Internet Protocol address is assigned in a corporate network.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the Internet Protocol address information is collected from an Internet Protocol address management system associated with an enterprise.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the Internet Protocol traffic information comprises:

one or more World Wide Web sites accessed by the at least one network user and a username or internal Internet Protocol address associated with the one or more World Wide Web sites.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the Internet Protocol traffic information is collected from one or more Internet access points.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the Internet Protocol traffic is tagged with demographic information relating to the at least one network user.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein a mechanism for performing tagging of the Internet Protocol traffic is at least one of:

an appendage to a search string, an external source Internet Protocol address assignment, manipulation of a cookie, modification of a uniform resource locator, or manipulation of a hypertext transfer protocol packet.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the anonymizing comprises:

applying a one-way hash function to at least a portion of the data.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

providing access to the activity-to-demographic mapping in exchange for compensation.

13. A computer readable storage medium containing an executable program for defining a community of network users, where the program performs the steps of:

collecting data relating to at least one network user, where the data is of a type comprising at least one of;

demographic information relating to the at least one user, Internet Protocol address information relating to the at least one user, and Internet Protocol traffic information relating to the at least one user;

anonymizing the data to generate anonymized data, where the anonymizing is performed individually for each type of data;

aggregating the anonymized data to generate an activity-to-demographic mapping representative of network activity associated with particular demographics of the community of network users; and

outputting the activity-to-demographic mapping.

14. The computer readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein the community of network users comprises one or more employees of an enterprise.

15. The computer readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein the demographic information comprises at least one of:

a username used by the at least one network user in a corporate network, a location of the at least one network user, a job title of the at least one network user, a sex of the at least one network user, and an age of the at least one network user.

16. The computer readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein the demographic information is collected from a human resources system associated with an enterprise.

17. The computer readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein the Internet Protocol address information comprises:

an Internet Protocol address of the at least one network user and a username to which the Internet Protocol address is assigned in a corporate network.

18. The computer readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein the Internet Protocol address information is collected from an Internet Protocol address management system associated with an enterprise.

19. The computer readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein the Internet Protocol traffic information comprises:

one or more World Wide Web sites accessed by the at least one network user and a username or internal Internet Protocol address associated with the one or more World Wide Web sites.

20. The computer readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein the Internet Protocol traffic information is collected from one or more Internet access points.

21. The computer readable storage medium of claim 20, wherein the Internet Protocol traffic is tagged with demographic information relating to the at least one network user.

22. The computer readable storage medium of claim 21, wherein a mechanism for performing tagging of the Internet Protocol traffic is at least one of:

an appendage to a search string, an external source Internet Protocol address assignment, manipulation of a cookie, modification of a uniform resource locator, or manipulation of a hypertext transfer protocol packet.

23. The computer readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein the anonymizing comprises:

applying a one-way hash function to at least a portion of the data.

24. The computer readable storage medium of claim 13, further comprising:

providing access to the activity-to-demographic mapping in exchange for compensation.

25. Apparatus for defining a community of network users, the apparatus comprising:

means for collecting data relating to at least one network user, where the data is of a type comprising at least one of;

demographic information relating to the at least one user, Internet Protocol address information relating to the at least one user, and Internet Protocol traffic information relating to the at least one user;

means for anonymizing the data to generate anonymized data, where the anonymizing is performed individually for each type of data;

means for aggregating the anonymized data to generate an activity-to-demographic mapping representative of network activity associated with particular demographics of the community of network users; and

means for outputting the activity-to-demographic mapping.