Service personalization with familiarity sensitivity

• US 9,558,283 B2
• Filed: 09/26/2014
• Issued: 01/31/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 09/26/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Novotny, Margaret JoAnn, Aguera y Arcas, Blaise, Howard, Jeffery David
• Primary Examiner(s): RAHIM, MONJUR
• Application Number:
  US14/498,846
• Publication Number:
  US 20160092695A1
• Time in Patent Office: 858 Days
• Field of Search: 726/28
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/955 using information identifiers, e.g. uniform resource locators [URL]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0269 based on user profile or attribute
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0271 Personalized advertisement
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0631 Item recommendations
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles

Abstract

Personalized services often utilize individual profiles, such as social network profiles, product purchase histories, or browsing histories. However, personalization may exhibit or imply a familiarity level between the service and the individual that is beyond the individual'"'"'s comfort level. Presented herein are techniques for adapting personalized services to request supplemental individual information only within a current familiarity stage that has been established by the individual with the service, and only to provide a requested usage of a service. Such solicitation may inform the individual of the intended usage of the requested information. Usages that may involve more sensitive information may be predicated upon requesting and receiving individual consent from the individual to advance to a higher familiarity stage. The user may be permitted to provide individual consent to advancing to a higher familiarity stage only for a particular service, and/or only temporarily for a particular usage of the service.

Claims

1. A method of providing a service for an individual having an individual profile specifying a familiarity level established by the individual with the service, the method involving a device having a hardware processor and comprising:

executing on the hardware processor instructions that cause the device to, upon receiving a request for a usage of the service that involves supplemental individual information that is absent from the individual profile;

determine whether the supplemental individual information is within the familiarity level established by the individual with the service; and

upon determining that the supplemental individual information is within the familiarity level;

request the supplemental individual information from the individual; and

upon receiving the supplemental individual information;

store the supplemental individual information in the individual profile, and provide the service for the individual using the individual profile and the supplemental individual information; and

upon receiving supplemental individual information about the individual that exceeds the familiarity level, discard the supplemental individual information.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the individual profile is structured according to at least two familiarity stages;

executing the instructions further causes the device to, upon receiving from the individual an individual consent to advance to a higher familiarity stage, store the higher familiarity stage in the individual profile; and

requesting the supplemental individual information further comprises;

requesting from the individual only the supplemental individual information that is within the higher familiarity stage of the individual profile.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the familiarity level is represented as a familiarity stage selected from a familiarity stage set comprising:

an anonymous familiarity stage comprising an absence of information about the individual;

an impersonal familiarity stage comprising information disclosed by the individual in a current interaction;

a semi-familiar familiarity stage comprising non-sensitive information about the individual; and

a familiar familiarity stage comprising sensitive information about the individual.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein executing the instructions further causes the device to:

prioritize respective usages of the service according to the familiarity stage of the usage; and

between a first usage and a second usage involving a higher familiarity stage than the familiarity stage of the first usage, perform the first usage before the second usage.

6. The method of claim 3, wherein executing the instructions further causes the device to, upon identifying supplemental individual information relating the usage of the service and having a familiarity stage that is not within the selected familiarity stage of the individual profile:

request, from the individual, an individual consent to advance the selected familiarity stage to a higher familiarity stage of the usage of the service; and

upon receiving the individual consent from the individual, advance the selected familiarity stage to the higher familiarity stage of the usage of the service.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein:

requesting the individual consent from the individual further comprises;

requesting, from the individual, an individual consent to advance the selected familiarity stage to the higher familiarity stage only for the usage of the service; and

advancing the selected familiarity stage further comprises;

upon completing the usage of the service, return from the higher familiarity stage to the selected familiarity stage.

8. The method of claim 3, wherein:

respective services are associated with an individual profile domain;

the individual profile further comprises a selected familiarity stage for respective individual profile domains of the individual profile; and

requesting the supplemental individual information further comprises;

identifying the selected familiarity stage of the individual profile domain of the service; and

requesting from the individual the supplemental individual information within the selected familiarity stage of the individual profile domain of the service.

2. A method of providing a service for an individual having an individual profile specifying a familiarity level established by the individual with the service, the method involving a device having a hardware processor and comprising:

executing on the hardware processor instructions that cause the device to, upon receiving a request for a usage of the service that involves supplemental individual information that is absent from the individual profile;

determine whether the supplemental individual information is within the familiarity level established by the individual with the service; and

upon determining that the supplemental individual information is within the familiarity level;

request the supplemental individual information from the individual; and

upon receiving the supplemental individual information;

store the supplemental individual information in the individual profile, and provide the service for the individual using the individual profile and the supplemental individual information; and

before requesting the supplemental individual information from the individual, maximize the usage of the service for the individual in the absence of the supplemental individual information.

9. A system for providing a service for an individual having an individual profile specifying a familiarity level established by the individual with the service, the system comprising:

a hardware processor;

a service informant that, upon receiving a request for a usage of a service with an individual profile involving supplemental individual information that is absent from the individual profile;

determine whether the supplemental individual information is within the familiarity level established by the individual with the service; and

upon determining that the supplemental individual information is within the familiarity level;

requests the supplemental individual information from the individual, and upon receiving the supplemental individual information, provides the service for the individual using the individual profile;

upon receiving supplemental individual information about the individual that exceeds the familiarity level, discards the supplemental individual information; and

a user interface that informs the individual of the usage of the supplemental individual information by the service.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the service informant, upon receiving supplemental individual information that exceeds the familiarity level established by the individual with the service, refrains from using the supplemental individual information to provide the service for the individual.

11. The system of claim 9, further comprising:

an individual profile generator that, upon receiving supplemental individual information that is within the familiarity level established by the individual with the service, stores the supplemental individual information in the individual profile.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the individual profile generator further comprises an inferrer that, upon inferring an individual detail about the individual that is within the familiarity level established by the individual with the service, stores the individual detail in the individual profile of the individual.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein:

a selected interaction with the individual comprises an option set presented by the service; and

the user interface infers the individual detail about the individual by;

presenting in the option set;

a personalized option that is associated with the individual detail, and

a non-personalized option that is not associated with the individual detail; and

detecting higher individual interest of the individual in the personalized option than in the non-personalized option.

14. The system of claim 9, further comprising:

a familiarity stage manager that;

upon detecting that the usage of the service involves a higher familiarity level than the selected familiarity level;

requests from the individual an individual consent to advance the selected familiarity level to the higher familiarity level; and

upon receiving the individual consent from the individual, stores the higher familiarity level as the selected familiarity level in the individual profile of the individual.

15. A memory device storing instructions that, when executed on a processor of a computer, causes the computer to provide a usage of a service for the individual, by:

identifying supplemental individual information relating to the usage of the service and absent from an individual profile of the individual;

determining whether the supplemental individual information is within a familiarity level established by the individual with the service;

only upon determining that the supplemental individual information is within the familiarity level;

requesting the supplemental individual information from the individual; and

upon receiving the supplemental individual information, providing the service for the individual using the supplemental individual information, and

upon receiving supplemental individual information about the individual that exceeds the familiarity level, discarding the supplemental individual information.

16. The memory device of claim 15, wherein executing the instructions further causes the computer to, upon receiving supplemental individual information about the individual that exceeds the familiarity level:

discard the supplemental individual information; and

refrain from using the supplemental individual information while providing the service for the individual.

17. The memory device of claim 15, wherein executing the instructions further causes the computer to, upon receiving from the individual a refusal to provide the supplemental individual information, provide the service for the individual without the supplemental individual information.

18. The memory device of claim 15, wherein executing the instructions further causes the computer to, upon detecting a reduced familiarity level established by the individual with the service:

reexamine the individual profile to identify an individual detail that exceeds the reduced familiarity level; and

remove the individual detail from the individual profile.

19. The memory device of claim 15, wherein executing the instructions further causes the computer to refrain from requesting the supplemental individual information for subsequent usages of services.

20. A memory device storing instructions that, when executed on a processor of a computer, causes the computer to provide a usage of a service for the individual, by:

identifying supplemental individual information relating to the usage of the service and absent from an individual profile of the individual;

determining whether the supplemental individual information is within a familiarity level established by the individual with the service, the supplemental individual information being within the familiarity level when the supplemental individual information is on a comparable level of familiarity with previously disclosed information;

only upon determining that the supplemental individual information is within the familiarity level;

requesting the supplemental individual information from the individual; and

upon receiving the supplemental individual information, providing the service for the individual using the supplemental individual information.