GENERATING ANONYMOUS LOG ENTRIES

• US 20090198746A1
• Filed: 02/01/2008
• Published: 08/06/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 02/01/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Kern, Randall F., Hintze, Michael D., Behr, Frederic H. JR., Zheng, Zijian, Howell, Kimberly J.
• Granted Patent: US 7,937,383 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/00 Information retrieval; Database structures therefor; File system structures therefor

Abstract

Assigning session identifications to log entries and generating anonymous log entries are provided. In order to balance users'"'"' privacy concerns with the need for analysis of the log entries to provide high quality search results, non-user-specific data fields, such as a user'"'"'s location (e.g., city, state, and latitude/longitude) and connection speed, are inserted into the log entries, and user-specific data fields, such as the IP address and cookie identifications, are deleted from the log entries. In addition or alternatively, prior to anonymization of the log entries, session identifications are assigned to identified groups of log entries. The groups are identified based on factors such as the user'"'"'s identification, the IP address, the time of search, and differences between the search terms used in the search queries.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for generating anonymous log entries, the method comprising:

providing a log entry, wherein the log entry corresponds to a search query;

inserting at least one new data field and a corresponding value into the log entry, wherein the at least one new data field and the corresponding value cannot be used to track the log entry to a specific user; and

deleting all data fields and corresponding values that can be used to track the log entry to the specific user from the log entry to generate an anonymous log entry.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining whether the log entry is older than a pre-selected period of time.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the log entry is a copy log entry of an original log entry.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 3, further comprising:

validating the integrity of the anonymous log entry by comparing the anonymous log entry to the original log entry.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 3, further comprising:

deleting the original log entry that corresponds to the anonymous log entry.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the at least one new data field comprises at least one of a user location and a connection speed.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 6, wherein the at least one of the user location and the connection speed is retrieved from an IP lookup database using an IP address associated with the log entry.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein deleting all data fields and corresponding values that can be used to track the log entry to a specific user comprises deleting the IP address and each of a plurality of cookie identifications associated with the log entry.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

deleting a plurality of user-identifying information from the search query.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 9, wherein the plurality of user-identifying information comprises the user'"'"'s social security number, the user'"'"'s name, the user'"'"'s address, and the user'"'"'s credit card number.

11. A computer-implemented method for assigning session identifications to log entries, the method comprising:

receiving a plurality of original log entries, wherein each of the plurality of original log entries is associated with a different search query;

identifying at least one group of log entries, wherein the identification of the at least one group of log entries is based on an analysis of the plurality of original log entries; and

assigning a session identification to each original log entry within the at least one group of log entries.

12. The computer-implemented method of claim 11, wherein the analysis of each original log entry is based on at least one of a user identification, an IP address, a time of search, a difference between a plurality of search terms used in each of the search queries, and any combination thereof.

13. The computer-implemented method of claim 11, further comprising:

determining whether each of the plurality of original log entries is older than a pre-selected period of time.

14. The computer-implemented method of claim 13, further comprising:

creating a copy log entry of each of the plurality of original log entries;

15. The computer-implemented method of claim 14, further comprising:

inserting at least one new data field and a corresponding value into each copy log entry, wherein the at least one new data field and the corresponding value cannot be used to track the log entry to a specific user;

16. The computer-implemented method of claim 15, wherein the at least one new data field comprises at least one of a user location and a connection speed.

17. The computer-implemented method of claim 16, further comprising:

deleting all data fields and corresponding values that can be used to track the copy log entries to a corresponding specific user from each copy log entry to generate anonymous log entries.

18. The computer-implemented method of claim 17, further comprising:

validating the integrity of each of the anonymous log entries by comparing each anonymous log entry to the corresponding original log entry.

19. The computer-implemented method of claim 17, further comprising:

deleting the plurality of original log entries that correspond to the anonymous log entries.

20. One or more computer-readable media having computer-executable instructions embodied thereon that, when executed, perform a method for generating anonymous log entries, the method comprising:

receiving a plurality of original log entries, wherein each of the plurality of original log entries is associated with a different search query;

identifying at least one group of log entries, wherein the at least one group of log entries is based on an analysis of each original log entry, and wherein the analysis of each original log entry is based on at least one of a user identification, an IP address, a time of search, a difference between a plurality of search terms used in each of the search queries, and any combination thereof;

assigning a session identification to each original log entry within the at least one group of log entries, wherein the session identification is not able to be tracked to a specific user;

creating a copy log entry of each of the plurality of original log entries;

inserting at least one new data field and a corresponding value into each of the copy log entries, wherein the at least one new data field and the corresponding value cannot be used to track the copy log entries to a specific user, and wherein the at least one new data field comprises at least one of the session identification, a user location, and a connection speed;

deleting all data fields and corresponding values that can be used to track the copy log entries to the specific user from the copy log entries to generate anonymous log entries;

validating the integrity of each of the anonymous log entries by comparing each anonymous log entry to the corresponding original log entry; and

deleting each of the plurality of original log entries that correspond to the anonymous log entries.