BALANCING THE COSTS OF SHARING PRIVATE DATA WITH THE UTILITY OF ENHANCED PERSONALIZATION OF ONLINE SERVICES

• US 20090327228A1
• Filed: 06/27/2008
• Published: 12/31/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 06/27/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Krause, Rainer Andreas, Horvitz, Eric
• Granted Patent: US 8,346,749 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising

Abstract

Described herein is a method that includes determining a utility to a user of sharing a set of attributes for use in connection with personalized searching or other online services. The method further includes determining a cost to the user of sharing the set of attributes. The method also includes outputting an indication of a net benefit to the user of sharing the set of attributes based at least in part upon the determined utility and the determined cost.

Claims

1. A method comprising the following computer-executable acts:

determining a utility to a user of sharing a set of attributes for use in connection with personalized searching;

determining a cost to the user of sharing the set of attributes; and

outputting an indication of a net benefit to the user of sharing the set of attributes based at least in part upon the determined utility and the determined cost.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the determined cost corresponds to user-input relating to which attributes the user is willing to share.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the determined cost is a probability that the user is identifiable given the set of attributes.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the determined utility is based at least in part upon an expected click entropy reduction, wherein the click entropy reduction indicates an expected change in click entropy between when the set of attributes is not used in connection with a search and when the set of attributes is used in connection with the search.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving a profile from the user that includes a subset of attributes in the set of attributes that the user is willing to share; and

using the profile to perform a search when the user provides a query to a search engine.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving a query; and

prompting the user for at least one attribute that is determined to increase the net benefit to the user of sharing the at least one attribute together with previously shared attributes.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising, for a single search session, using a profile when performing a personalized search.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving the set of attributes; and

determining a subset of the set of attributes that corresponds to an optimal or substantially optimal net benefit to the user of sharing the subset of attributes.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

receiving data from the user that corresponds to at least one attribute in the subset of attributes; and

performing a search using the at least one attribute.

10. A system that facilitates personalized searching comprising the following computer-executable components:

a value of information determiner component that determines a value of information to a user of sharing one or more attributes that correspond to the user;

a cost determiner component that determines a cost to the user of sharing the one or more attributes; and

an analyzer component that receives the value of information determined by the value of information determiner component and the cost determined by the cost determiner component and outputs an indication of a net benefit to the user of sharing the one or more attributes in connection with personalized searching based at least in part upon the received value of information and the received cost.

11. The system of claim 10, further comprising a selector component that selects a set of attributes in the one or more attributes that optimizes or substantially optimizes the net benefit to the user with respect to sharing the set of attributes based at least in part upon the output indication.

12. The system of claim 11, further comprising an information requester component that requests information from a user to optimize or substantially optimize the net benefit to the user with respect to personalized searching.

13. The system of claim 10, further comprising a profile generator component that provides information to the user and receives information from the user and generates a user profile, wherein the user profile includes information corresponding to at least one attribute in the one or more attributes that the user has authorized for use when a personalized search is performed.

14. The system of claim 13, further comprising a search component that uses the user profile to perform a personalized search when a query is received from the user.

15. The system of claim 13, wherein the user profile is authorized for use during a single search session.

16. The system of claim 13, wherein the user profile is retained on a client.

17. The system of claim 10, wherein the cost is based at least in part upon identifiability of the user given the one or more attributes.

18. The system of claim 10, wherein the value of information is an expected entropy reduction achieved by observing the one or more attributes from a base entropy.

19. The system of claim 10, further comprising:

a logger component that generates logs of queries of the user and web sites visited by the user; and

a purger component that automatically purges data from the logs generated by the logger component to maintain restrictions in a user profile.

20. A computer-readable medium comprising instructions that, when executed by a processor, perform the following acts:

receive a set of attributes that correspond to a user;

determine a subset of attributes from the set of attributes that correspond to an optimal or substantially optimal net benefit to the user for performing a personalized search; and

perform a personalized search upon receipt of a query from the user, wherein the subset of attributes are used in connection with ranking search results that are presented to the user.