Voice review of privacy policy in a mobile environment

• US 7,206,744 B2
• Filed: 12/14/2001
• Issued: 04/17/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 12/14/2001
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: SBC Technology Resources, Inc. (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: SBC Technology Resources, Inc. (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Suryanaraya, Lalitha
• Primary Examiner(s): Azad; Abul K.
• Application Number:
  US09/683,331
• Publication Number:
  US 20030112791A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,950 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 704/270.1
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 13/00 Speech synthesis; Text to speech systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0407 wherein the identity of one or more communicating identities is hidden cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for anonymous credentials or for identity based cryptographic systems H04L9/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/102 Entity profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/168 above the transport layer
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/04 specially adapted for terminals or networks with limited capabilities; specially adapted for terminal portability
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/02 Protecting privacy or anonymity, e.g. protecting personally identifiable information [PII]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/00 Services specially adapted for wireless communication networks; Facilities therefor
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/18 Information format or content conversion, e.g. adaptation by the network of the transmitted or received information for the purpose of wireless delivery to users or terminals
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 88/02 Terminal devices

Abstract

A wireless mobile station transmits a request to a Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P) Web site for an XML version of the site'"'"'s privacy policy. If the mobile station'"'"'s user preferences are set to audio, the mobile station transmits a request to the Web site for the natural language version of the privacy policy in audio format. The Web site responds with the audio version of the privacy policy.

Claims

1. A method for aural review of a privacy policy in a wireless environment, the wireless environment comprising a mobile station having at least one user preference and a Web site, the method comprising the steps of:

retrieving a first version of the privacy policy comprising a network location;

retrieving a natural language version of the privacy policy from the network location based on the first version of the privacy policy and the at least one user preference; and

presenting an audio representation of the natural language version.

2. The method of claim 1 and further including the step of requesting an input in response to the natural language version of the privacy policy.

3. The method of claim 2 and further including the steps of receiving a response to request Internet content.

4. The method of claim 2 wherein the input is an aural response.

5. The method of claim 2 wherein the input is a text response.

6. The method of claim 2 wherein the input is a dual-tone multi-frequency tone.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the first version of the privacy policy is an extensible mark-up language version.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of retrieving the natural language version comprises retrieving a file in an audio format.

9. The method of claim 8 wherein the audio format is a Multimedia Internet Mail Extension format.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein the network location is a universal resource locator that is presented in the first version as a discuri parameter.

11. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of retrieving the natural language version comprises retrieving an audio representation of the natural language version.

12. A method for aural review of a privacy policy in a wireless environment, the wireless environment comprising a mobile station having at least one user preference, a Platform for Privacy Preferences-enabled Web site, a Web service registry, and an audio conversion server, the method comprising the steps of:

receiving a request for a first version of the privacy policy, comprising a network location, from the mobile station;

determining a network location for the audio conversion server to transform the first version of the privacy policy to a natural language version of the privacy policy by converting text to an audio format based on the at least one user preference; and

transmitting the natural language version of the privacy policy in the audio format to the mobile station for presentation.

13. The method of claim 12 wherein the first version of the privacy policy is an extensible mark-up language version.

14. The method of claim 12 wherein the step of determining the network location for the audio conversion server comprises accessing the Web service registry for the network location for the audio conversion server having a text-to-audio conversion service.

15. The method of claim 12 and further including the step of receiving a request for Internet content in response to the natural language version of the privacy policy in the audio format.

16. A method for aural review of a privacy policy in a wireless environment, the wireless environment comprising a mobile station having at least one user preference and a Platform for Privacy Preferences-enabled Web site, the method comprising the steps of:

receiving a request for a natural language version of a privacy policy, the request comprising a network location of the privacy policy;

receiving the at least one user preference; and

transmitting a multi-modal format natural language version of the privacy policy based on the at least one user preference.

17. The method of claim 16 wherein the multi-modal format comprises audio and visual material.

18. The method of claim 16 wherein the multi-modal format is obtained by invoking a Web service.

19. A method for aural review of a privacy policy in a wireless environment, the wireless environment comprising a mobile station having at least one user preference, a wireless access protocol-enabled (WAP) proxy, and a Web site, the method comprising the steps of:

the WAP proxy receiving a request for a natural language version of the privacy policy, the request comprising a network location of the privacy policy and the user preferences;

transmitting a request for a natural language version of the privacy policy to the Web site on behalf of a user based on the at least one user preference;

receiving the natural language version from the Web site;

transforming the natural language version to a voice extensible mark-up language (VXML) compatible format version of the privacy policy;

generating an identification for the VXML format version of the privacy policy; and

transmitting the identification.

20. The method of claim 19 and further including the step of the WAP proxy receiving a call from the mobile station in response to the identification.

21. The method of claim 20 and further including the step of responding to the privacy policy via dual-tone multi-frequency while on the call.

22. The method of claim 20 and further including the step of responding to the privacy policy via speech while on the call.

23. A method for aural review of a privacy policy in a wireless environment, the wireless environment comprising a mobile station having at least one user preference, a Platform for Privacy Preferences-enabled Web site, a Wireless Access Protocol (WAP) proxy, and a Voice eXtensible Mark-up Language (VXML) server, the method comprising the steps of:

receiving a request for a natural language version of the privacy policy, comprising a network location, from the mobile station;

generating an identification for an audio format of the natural language version of the privacy policy based on the at least one user preference;

transmitting the identification to the mobile station;

transmitting the identification and the network location to the VXML server;

the VXML server retrieving the natural language version of the privacy policy from the network location; and

the VXML server transforming the natural language version of the privacy policy to VXML format.

24. The method of claim 23 and further including the step of receiving a response from the mobile station in response to the VXML format of the natural language version of the privacy policy.

25. A system for aural review of a privacy policy in a wireless environment, the system comprising:

a wireless network that enables a plurality of wireless, mobile stations to communicate with the system; and

a Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P)-enabled Web site that has the ability to receive a request, comprising a network location and at least one user preference, for a natural language version of the privacy policy, the Web site further has the ability to interpret the at least one user preference and retrieve, from the network location, the natural language version of the privacy policy in an audio format based on the at least one user preference and transmit the audio format to a requesting mobile station.

26. The system of claim 25 wherein the network location is a Universal Resource Locator for the Internet.

27. A system for aural review of a privacy policy in a wireless environment, the system comprising:

a wireless network that enables a plurality of wireless, mobile stations to communicate with the system;

an audio transcoding Web service that is capable of converting a text file of the privacy policy to an audio format;

a Web service registry that stores a network locator for the audio transcoding Web service; and

a Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P)-enabled Web site that is capable of accessing the Web service registry to retrieve the network locator, the P3P-enabled Web site is further capable of transmitting one of either the text file of the privacy policy or a reference to the text file to the audio transcoding Web service, receiving the audio format of the privacy policy and transmitting the audio format of the privacy policy to a requesting mobile station.

28. The system of claim 27 and further including the requesting mobile station comprising a user agent that is capable of accessing the Web service registry and transmitting the text file to the audio transcoding Web service.

29. A system for aural review of a privacy policy in a wireless environment, the system comprising:

a wireless network that enables a plurality of wireless, mobile stations to communicate with the system;

a wireless access protocol (WAP) proxy that interfaces between the wireless network and the system, the WAP proxy is capable of forwarding a request from a mobile station for a natural language version of the privacy policy;

a Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P)-enabled Web site that stores the natural language version of the privacy policy; and

a voice extensible mark-up language (VXML) server that is capable of retrieving the natural language version of the privacy policy from the P3P-enabled Web site in response to the forwarded request, the VXML server is further capable of converting the natural language version of the privacy policy into a VXML interaction format that is accessible by the mobile station via a call to the VXML server.

30. The system of claim 29 wherein the call to the VXML server is a voice over IP call.