PROVIDING USER METRICS FOR AN UNKNOWN DIMENSION TO AN EXTERNAL SYSTEM

• US 20170324626A9
• Filed: 04/04/2016
• Published: 11/09/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 10/03/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Inventors: Bruich, Sean Michael, Leach, Frederick Ross
• Granted Patent: US 10,728,122 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0254 based on statistics
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/062 related to network traffic
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/40 Support for services or applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/146 Markers for unambiguous identification of a particular session, e.g. session cookie or URL-encoding
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols

Abstract

A social networking system may provide user metrics for unknown dimensions to an external system using received hash codes from user devices performing actions on the external system. Embodiments of the invention receive hash codes generated by external systems that are embedded in redirect Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) that are executed by user devices. The social networking system may match the received hash codes to identifying information about users, e.g., user identifiers. The user profile information may be reported to external systems based on hash codes in an aggregated format without disclosing identifying information about users. In one embodiment, a hash code may include identifying information of an administrator of an external system to enable the administrator to merge information about users of the social networking system with other unknown dimensions of information about the users that is known by the external system.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving, by an online system, a plurality of redirect URLs from an external system, each redirect URL redirecting each user of a plurality of users of the online system from the external system to the online system and comprising a hash code containing encoded information for one or more actions of a plurality of possible actions performed by each user on the external system, wherein each hash code corresponds to one of the plurality of possible actions and obfuscates each possible action to be unknown to the online system, wherein each user of the plurality of users is associated with at least one of the one or more actions that is different relative to at least one other user of the plurality of users;

determining, for each of the plurality of redirect URLs, a user identifier for each user of the plurality of users of the online system based at least in part on a user device associated with at least one of the plurality of redirect URLs;

determining, based on the user identifiers, user information for each user of the plurality of users;

generating, by the online system, a report of the user information organized by each hash code, the report providing the user information for the plurality of users of the online system that have performed the one or more actions of a plurality of possible actions on the external system; and

providing the report to the external system.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

extracting the hash code from each of the plurality of redirect URLs, the hash code corresponding to one a plurality of different hash codes, each of the plurality of different hash codes corresponding to an action of the plurality of possible actions; and

aggregating the user information by hash code.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the user information includes at least one of age, gender, interests, or location of the users.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the report provides the external system with information about the users performing the one or more actions of the plurality of possible actions on the external system.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the user identifier for each user includes obtaining the user identifier for each user from cookies stored on the user device.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein each user of the plurality of users is associated with a user profile at the online system and the user information is obtained from the user profile for each user using the user identifier.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein each of the plurality of possible actions correspond to a different action performable on a webpage of the external system.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein an action of the plurality of possible actions is an indication of desire to purchase a product.

9. A method comprising:

receiving, by an online system, a plurality of redirect URLs from an external system, each redirect URL redirecting users of the online system from the external system to the online system, each the plurality of redirect URLs comprising an encoded information identifier corresponding to an action of a plurality of possible actions performed by a user on the external system, wherein each encoded information identifier is obfuscated to be unknown to the online system;

determining, for at least a subset of the plurality of redirect URLs, a user identifier for each user of the online system based at least in part on a user device associated with at least one of the plurality of redirect URLs;

determining, based on the user identifiers, user information for each user of the plurality of users; and

generating, by the online system, a user information aggregation by aggregating the user information by encoded information identifier, the user information aggregation providing the user information for the users of the online system that have performed actions of the plurality of possible actions on the external system.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

extracting the encoded information identifier from each of the plurality of redirect URLs, the encoded information identifier corresponding to one a plurality of different encoded information identifiers, each of the plurality of different encoded information identifiers corresponding to an action of the plurality of possible actions.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein each user is associated with at least one of the actions that is different relative to at least one other user.

12. The method of claim 9, wherein the user information aggregation is provided to the external system.

13. The method of claim 9, wherein the user information aggregation comprises information about one or more connections that the users have established in the online system.

14. The method of claim 9, wherein determining the user identifier for each user includes obtaining the user identifier for each user from cookies stored on the user device.

15. A method comprising:

receiving a plurality of redirect URLs from users of an online system, each redirect URL comprising a hash code for tracking a metric defined by an external system associated with each user, each hash code containing encoded information for a value of a plurality of values of the metric, the value of the metric being obfuscated in the hash code by the external system to be unknown to the online system;

determining, for each of the plurality of redirect URLs, a user identifier for each user of the online system based at least in part on a user device associated with at least one of the plurality of redirect URLs;

determining, based on the user identifiers, user information for each user;

generating, by the online system, a report of the user information organized by hash code, the report providing the user information for the plurality of users of the online system by the plurality of values of the metric; and

providing the report to the external system.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein each user is associated with a value of the metric different relative to at least one other user of the users of the online system.

17. The method of claim 15, further comprising:

extracting the hash code from each of the plurality of redirect URLs, the hash code corresponding to one of a plurality of different hash codes, each of the plurality of different hash codes corresponding to a different value of the metric.

18. The method of claim 15, wherein the user information includes at least one of age, gender, interests, or location of the users.

19. The method of claim 15, wherein determining the user identifier for each user includes obtaining the user identifier for each user from cookies stored on the user device.

20. The method of claim 15, wherein each user of the plurality of users is associated with a user profile at the online system and the user information is obtained from the user profile for each user using the user identifier.