Systems and methods for generating and maintaining internet user profile data
First Claim
1. A method of automatically maintaining a user profile cookie set using a system having cookie harvesting computing equipment and a user profile database, wherein the user profile cookie set is to be used in browsing publisher websites while simulating an internet user having a user profile, the method comprising:
- with the cookie harvesting computing equipment, selecting a publisher website to explore;
with the cookie harvesting computing equipment, selecting the user profile from the user profile database;
with the cookie harvesting computing equipment, selecting a cookie set associated with the user profile;
with a web crawler of the cookie harvesting computing equipment, loading the selected publisher website while allowing the selected publisher website to update the selected cookie set;
storing the updated cookie set in the user profile database;
with advertisement discovery equipment, identifying advertisements that have been placed on the selected publisher website by an advertisement channel that is separate from the advertisement discovery equipment, wherein the advertisements that have been placed on the selected publisher website are associated with the selected user profile; and
with the advertisement discovery equipment, identifying placement pathways associated with the identified advertisements that have been placed on the selected publisher website by the advertisement channel.
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Accused Products
Abstract
Systems and methods are provided for automatically generating and maintaining user profile cookie sets. The user profile cookie sets may be used by a web crawler when gathering data such as advertisement data associated with one or more websites. The cookie sets may be generated by choosing a user profile with a set of user traits, selecting a set of websites related to the user traits, and browsing the selected set of websites using a web crawler while allowing the website to place cookies in storage of the web crawler. The cookie sets may be maintained by selecting a website to browse, selecting a user profile associated with the selected website, loading a previously generated cookie set for the selected user profile into the storage of a web crawler, and loading the webpage while allowing the website to place, update, or replace cookies in the storage of the web crawler.
318 Citations
13 Claims
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1. A method of automatically maintaining a user profile cookie set using a system having cookie harvesting computing equipment and a user profile database, wherein the user profile cookie set is to be used in browsing publisher websites while simulating an internet user having a user profile, the method comprising:
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with the cookie harvesting computing equipment, selecting a publisher website to explore; with the cookie harvesting computing equipment, selecting the user profile from the user profile database; with the cookie harvesting computing equipment, selecting a cookie set associated with the user profile; with a web crawler of the cookie harvesting computing equipment, loading the selected publisher website while allowing the selected publisher website to update the selected cookie set; storing the updated cookie set in the user profile database; with advertisement discovery equipment, identifying advertisements that have been placed on the selected publisher website by an advertisement channel that is separate from the advertisement discovery equipment, wherein the advertisements that have been placed on the selected publisher website are associated with the selected user profile; and with the advertisement discovery equipment, identifying placement pathways associated with the identified advertisements that have been placed on the selected publisher website by the advertisement channel. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
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10. A system, comprising:
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cookie harvesting computing equipment; user profile database computing equipment configured to store a plurality of user profiles, wherein the cookie harvesting computing equipment comprises a processor that is configured to generate one or more cookie sets associated with each user profile of the plurality of user profiles and that is configured to simulate a user having each user profile of the plurality of user profiles to automatically gather and analyze advertisement information associated with each of the plurality of user profiles from a plurality of publisher websites, wherein the processor is configured to analyze the advertisement information by identifying placement pathways associated with advertisement creatives identified by the gathered advertisement information, wherein the processor is configured to identify the placement pathways by identifying site-specific data trees for each of the identified advertisements, and wherein the site-specific data trees each comprise a base uniform resource locator (URL) associated with the corresponding advertisement creative and branches indicating the placement pathways of the corresponding advertisement creative. - View Dependent Claims (11, 12, 13)
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Specification