Methods and apparatus to maintain audience privacy while determining viewing of video-on-demand programs
First Claim
1. A method to share data between a service provider and a media monitoring system, the method comprising:
- accessing a data set provided by the service provider to the media monitoring system, the data set including service usage data and first encrypted identification data collected by the service provider for subscribers of the service provider, the first encrypted identification data being encrypted to hide identities of the subscribers from the media monitoring system;
encrypting, with a processor, a combination of first and second personal identification data retrieved based on device identification data associated with a monitored device to determine second encrypted identification data;
comparing, with the processor, a value of the second encrypted identification data with values of the first encrypted identification data in the data set to identify an entry of the data set that is associated with the second encrypted identification data; and
adding, with the processor, a respective portion of the service usage data associated with the identified entry of the data set to a database of the media monitoring system.
12 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
Methods and apparatus to maintain audience privacy while determining viewing of video-on-demand (VOD) programs are disclosed. An example method disclosed herein comprises obtaining subscriber metering data from a site metering device monitoring presentation of VOD content at a first subscriber site, obtaining server metering data from a VOD server, the server metering data including identification information for a plurality of subscriber sites to identify particular VOD content provided uniquely to each of the subscriber sites, the identification information manipulated to preserve anonymity of the plurality of subscriber sites, manipulating at least a portion of the subscriber metering data to determine a first manipulated identifier to identify the first subscriber site, and using the first manipulated identifier to cross-reference the manipulated identification information included in the server metering data to merge the subscriber metering data and the portion of the server metering data uniquely associated with the first subscriber site.
88 Citations
20 Claims
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1. A method to share data between a service provider and a media monitoring system, the method comprising:
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accessing a data set provided by the service provider to the media monitoring system, the data set including service usage data and first encrypted identification data collected by the service provider for subscribers of the service provider, the first encrypted identification data being encrypted to hide identities of the subscribers from the media monitoring system; encrypting, with a processor, a combination of first and second personal identification data retrieved based on device identification data associated with a monitored device to determine second encrypted identification data; comparing, with the processor, a value of the second encrypted identification data with values of the first encrypted identification data in the data set to identify an entry of the data set that is associated with the second encrypted identification data; and adding, with the processor, a respective portion of the service usage data associated with the identified entry of the data set to a database of the media monitoring system. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
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8. A tangible computer readable storage device or storage disk comprising computer readable instructions which, when executed, cause a computing device to at least:
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access a data set provided by a service provider to a media monitoring system, the data set including service usage data and first encrypted identification data collected by the service provider for subscribers of the service provider, the first encrypted identification data being encrypted to hide identities of the subscribers from the media monitoring system; encrypt a combination of first and second personal identification data retrieved based on device identification data associated with a monitored device to determine second encrypted identification data; compare a value of the second encrypted identification data with values of the first encrypted identification data in the data set to identify an entry of the data set that is associated with the second encrypted identification data; and add a respective portion of the service usage data associated with the identified entry of the data set to a database of the media monitoring system. - View Dependent Claims (9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14)
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15. An apparatus to share data between a service provider and a media monitoring system, the apparatus comprising:
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a data interface to access a data set provided by the service provider to the media monitoring system, the data set including service usage data and first encrypted identification data collected by the service provider for subscribers of the service provider, the first encrypted identification data being encrypted to hide identities of the subscribers from the media monitoring system; a hash generator implemented with hardware to encrypt a combination of first and second personal identification data retrieved based on device identification data associated with a monitored device to determine second encrypted identification data; and a record identifier to; compare a value of the second encrypted identification data with values of the first encrypted identification data in the data set to identify an entry of the data set that is associated with the second encrypted identification data; and add a respective portion of the service usage data associated with the identified entry of the data set to a database of the media monitoring system. - View Dependent Claims (16, 17, 18, 19, 20)
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Specification