METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR IDENTIFYING USERS AND DETECTING FRAUD BY USE OF THE INTERNET

• US 20090037213A1
• Filed: 10/09/2008
• Published: 02/05/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 03/02/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: The 41st Parameter, Inc. (Experian plc)
• Original Assignee: The 41st Parameter, Inc. (Experian plc)
• Inventors: Eisen, Ori
• Granted Patent: US 8,862,514 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/318
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/73 by creating or determining hardware identification, e.g. serial numbers
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/04 Payment circuits
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/40 Authorisation, e.g. identification of payer or payee, verification of customer or shop credentials; Review and approval of payers, e.g. check credit lines or negative lists
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/4016 involving fraud or risk level assessment in transaction processing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0185 Product, service or business identity fraud

Abstract

A method and system for detecting and preventing Internet fraud in online transactions by utilizing and analyzing a number of parameters to uniquely identify a computer user and potential fraudulent transaction through predictive modeling. The method and system uses a delta of time between the clock of the computer used by the actual fraudulent use and the potentially fraudulent user and the clock of the server computer in conjunction with personal information and/or non-personal information, preferably the Browser ID.

Claims

1. A method for identifying customer computers for an Internet transaction comprising the steps of:

obtaining selected information about the customer computer during an Internet transaction with a merchant including a local time according to a customer computer clock and at least one non-personal identification parameter;

measuring a merchant server time from a merchant server clock during the Internet transaction;

calculating a delta of time parameter based upon a difference in time between the merchant server time and the local time according to the customer computer clock;

differentiating and setting apart the customer computer from other computers based upon its delta of time parameter; and

generating a computer identifier to further differentiate and set apart the customer computer from other computers which incorporates the delta of time parameter in combination with at least one non-personal identification parameter related to the computer.

2. The method as recited in claim 1 further comprising the step of:

obtaining additional identification parameters including personal identification information from the selected information.

3. The method as recited in claim 2, wherein the personal identification information includes consumer identification information.

4. The method as recited in claim 3, wherein the consumer identification information includes at least one of the following:

consumer name, address, billing information, shipping information, telephone number and e-mail address.

5. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the non-personal identification parameter is computer identification information.

6. The method as recited in claim 5, wherein the computer identification information includes an Internet parameter.

7. The method as recited in claim 6, wherein the Internet parameter is a CGI parameter.

8. The method as recited in claim 7, wherein the CGI parameter includes a Browser ID.

9. The method as recited in claim 1 further comprising the step of:

capturing relevant time zone information in which the customer computer is physically located from the selected information about the computer.

10. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the delta of time parameter is stored as a range of time.

11. A computer readable medium containing program instructions for identifying a customer computer for an online transaction with a merchant comprising:

computer code that receives from an online customer computer, during an online transaction with a merchant, at least one of either a personal or non-personal identification parameter;

computer code that captures from a clock of the customer computer, during the online transaction, the computer local time;

computer code that captures from a clock of a merchant server, during the online transaction, the merchant server local time;

computer code that calculates and stores a delta of time parameter based upon the difference between the customer computer local time and the merchant server local time, wherein calculating the delta of time parameter is performed at the time of the online transaction;

computer code that differentiates and sets apart the customer computer from other computers based upon its delta of time parameter; and

computer code that generates a computer identifier for further differentiating and setting apart the customer computer from other computers which incorporates the delta of time parameter and the personal or non-personal identification parameter.

12. A fingerprinting method to identify a user computer from other computers for an online transaction with an electronic commerce business comprising the steps of:

creating a first computer identifier in the course of a first online transaction with an electronic commerce business, and a second computer identifier in the course of a second online transaction with the electronic commerce business, wherein each computer identifier includes a delta of time parameter defined during the course of the online transaction by a time difference measured between a first clock measurement indicating a user computer local time and a second clock measurement indicating an electronic commerce business local time over a selected time interval;

differentiating each user computer from other computers based upon its delta of time parameter;

comparing the first computer identifier and the second computer identifier;

generating a matching parameter having a value based upon any measured difference between the first computer identifier and the second computer identifier; and

identifying the user computer with a selected level of certainty upon a comparison of the calculated value of the matching parameter with a defined matching value indicating whether the user computer was involved in both the first online transaction and the second online transaction.

13. The method as recited in claim 12, wherein the first clock measurement and the second clock measurement are each a measured using a JavaScript.

14. A computer readable medium comprising a computer program to perform a method as recited in claim 12 to identify a user computer.