Hierarchical models of consumer attributes for targeting content in a privacy-preserving manner

• US 6,327,574 B1
• Filed: 02/01/1999
• Issued: 12/04/2001
• Est. Priority Date: 07/07/1998
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Callahan Cellular LLC (Intellectual Ventures LLC)
• Original Assignee: Encirq Corporation (Ubiquitous AI Corp.)
• Inventors: Vogel, Mark B., Kramer, Glenn A.
• Primary Examiner(s): Gravini, Stephen
• Assistant Examiner(s): YOUNG, JOHN L
• Application Number:
  US09/241,546
• Time in Patent Office: 1,037 Days
• Field of Search: 705/10, 705/26, 705/14, 707/500, 707/501, 707/502, 707/503, 707/504, 707/542
• US Class Current: 705/14.66
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/972 Access to data in other repository systems, e.g. legacy data or dynamic Web page generation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0269 based on user profile or attribute
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0613 Third-party assisted

Abstract

A system and method provide for the interpretation and augmenting of structured documents electronically delivered to an individual consumer'"'"'s computer using consumer profiles developed from and maintained with information reflecting the consumer'"'"'s online and offline transactions, by selecting the variable content alternatives encoded in the structured documents that most closely match the consumer'"'"'s profile. The consumer profiles are logically controlled by the consumer'"'"'s computer, thus providing for enhanced security over information that is personal and confidential to the consumer, yet still allowing third parties such as web sites and others electronically delivering structured documents to the consumer to have such documents customized based on the consumer'"'"'s profile. The consumer profile includes hierarchical attribute vectors which encode attributes of a consumer at progressively higher levels of abstraction, and allowing for querying of any combination of abstracted data or abstracted attributes of a consumer. The consumer profiles are updated with a process that reflects the relevance of each transaction to the consumer'"'"'s profile, and accommodates a decay in the influence of transactions over time. A selection process for selecting content allows for multiple items of content to be selected for sequenced display to the consumer, through a limited presentation space.

Claims

1. A method of customizing a structured document delivered electronically to a consumer computer, the consumer computer including a display device, the method comprising:

receiving a structured document at the consumer computer, the structured document including a plurality of variable content sections, each variable content section having a plurality of selectable content alternatives;

for each variable content section, selecting a subset of the content alternatives for augmenting the section by evaluating the content alternatives with respect to a consumer profile of the consumer, ordering the subset of content alternatives into an order including a first content alternative, and augmenting the section with the first content alternative;

presenting the augmented structured document to the consumer on the display device with the first content alternative for each variable content section; and

enabling retrieval of the remaining content alternatives for each variable content section.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

ordering the selected content alternatives for a variable content section by a function of their relevancy to the consumer profile.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

presenting, in response to an action by the consumer with respect to one of the variable content sections, at least one of the remaining content alternatives for the variable content section.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

presenting, in response to an action by the consumer with respect to one of the variable content sections, at least one of the remaining content alternatives for the variable content section in place of the first content alternative for the variable content section.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein evaluating the content alternatives with respect to a consumer profile of the consumer further comprises:

comparing a target vector of attributes associated with a content alternative with a vector of attributes associated with the consumer profile.

6. The method of claim 5, further comprising:

selecting at least one attribute from the target vector using a relevancy vector comprising relevancy values corresponding to at least one attribute of the target vector; and

comparing only those attributes of the target vector for which the relevancy values exceed a threshold.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the relevancy value determines a relative importance of attributes of the target vector.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein evaluating the content alternatives with respect to a consumer profile of the consumer further comprises:

evaluating a Boolean query with respect to facts derived from transactions of the consumer.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein evaluating the content alternatives with respect to a consumer profile of the consumer further comprises:

evaluating a Boolean query with respect to logical abstractions derived from an attribute vector describing attributes of the consumer.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the consumer profile includes a consumer attribute vector, comprising:

a base vector comprising a plurality of base level attributes of the consumer, each base level attribute having a value; and

at least one hierarchical vector comprising at least one aggregate attribute associated with a plurality of base level attributes of the base level vector, and having a value computed as a function of the values of the associated base level attributes.

11. A method of selecting content for presentation to a consumer, comprising:

storing a consumer model of the consumer including an attribute vector having a plurality of attributes of the consumer;

receiving a document associated with a plurality of selectable content alternatives, each selectable content alternative associated with a target vector representing expected attributes of a consumer;

receiving in association with each target vector a relevancy vector including a plurality of relevancy values, each relevancy value associated with at least one attribute of the target vector, the relevancy value indicating a measure of relevancy of the associated attribute of the target vector;

scaling the attributes of the target vector by the relevancy value associated with each attribute;

comparing the attribute vector of the consumer with at least one of the scaled target vectors to determine a distance measure between the target vectors and the attribute vector;

selecting at least one of the content alternatives as a function of the distance measure; and

presenting the selected at least one content alternative to the consumer.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

receiving in association with at least one of the plurality of selectable content alternatives a query with respect to at least one attribute of the attribute vector of the consumer; and

evaluating the query against the attribute vector of the consumer to determine whether the content alternative may be selected for presentation to the consumer.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the query includes a priority value, and selecting at least one of the content alternatives as a function of the distance measure further comprises:

computing a match score for each content alternative as a function of the distance measure between the target vector associated with the content alternative and the attribute vector of the consumer, and the priority value of a query associated with the content alternative; and

selecting the content alternative with a highest match score.

14. The method of claim 11, wherein the consumer model comprises:

a base vector comprising a plurality of base level attributes of the consumer, each base level attribute having a value; and

at least one hierarchical vector comprising at least one aggregate attribute associated with a plurality of base level attributes of the base level vector, and having a value computed as a function of the values of the associated base level attributes.

15. A method of updating a model of consumer attributes, comprising:

retrieving a plurality of transactions;

determining a measure of relevancy of each transaction to at least one attribute of a consumer responsive to a conditional probability of each transaction occurring given a value of the attribute; and

updating the at least one attribute as a function of the relevancy of each of the plurality of transactions.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein updating the at least one attribute is performed using Bayes Theorem using the conditional probability of each transaction.

17. The method of claim 15, wherein updating the at least one attribute further comprising:

assigning each transaction to a time period in an ordered sequence of time periods;

for any time period to which no transaction is assigned, establishing a measure of relevancy for the attribute for no transaction occurring within the time period; and

updating the at least one attribute according to the ordered sequence of time periods, using the measures of relevancy of transactions in time periods in which the transactions occur, and the established measure of relevancy for the attribute for time periods in which no transactions occur.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein determining a measure of relevancy of each transaction comprises determining the conditional probability of each transaction occurring given a value of the attribute.

19. The method of claim 17, wherein updating the at least one attribute is performed using Bayes Theorem using the conditional probability of each transaction.

20. The method of claim 15, wherein the measure of relevancy of a transaction is a function of a monetary amount associated with the transaction.

21. The method of claim 15, wherein the measure of relevancy of a transaction is a function of at least one party to the transaction.

22. A method of selecting content for presentation to a consumer, the consumer associated with a consumer model describing attributes of the consumer, the content delivered electronically to a consumer computer, the consumer computer including a display device, the consumer associated with a consumer profile including a plurality of attributes of the consumer including at least one aggregated attributed having a value computed from a plurality of other attributes, the method comprising:

receiving a structured document at the consumer computer, the structured document including a variable content section having a first set of content alternatives;

selecting a first content alternative for augmenting the section by evaluating attributes of the content alternatives as a function of corresponding attributes of the consumer profile of the consumer and ordering the first set of content alternatives into an order including the first content alternative;

presenting the structured document with the first content alternative on the display device;

receiving a consumer action indicating selection of the first content alternative;

sending in response to the consumer action a second set of variable content alternatives, including a content alternative having an attribute that contributes to an aggregate attribute of the first content alternative;

selecting a second content alternative by evaluating the attributes of second set of content alternatives as a function of corresponding attributes of the consumer profile of the consumer and ordering the second set of content alternatives into an order including the second content alternative; and

presenting the structured document with the second content alternative on the display device.

23. A method of customizing a structured document, the structured document including a plurality of variable content sections, each variable content section having a plurality of selectable content alternatives, the structured document electronically delivered to a consumer computer, the consumer computer including a display device, the method comprising:

for each variable content section, selecting a subset of the content alternatives for augmenting the section by evaluating the content alternatives with respect to a consumer profile of the consumer, ordering the subset of content alternatives into an order including a first content alternative, and augmenting the section with the first content alternative;

presenting the augmented structured document to the consumer on the display device with the first content alternative for each variable content section; and

enabling presentment to the consumer on the display device of the remaining content alternatives for each variable content section.

24. The method of claim 23, further comprising:

ordering the selected content alternatives for a variable content section by a function of their relevancy to the consumer profile.

25. The method of claim 23, further comprising:

presenting, in response to an action by the consumer with respect to one of the variable content sections, at least one of the remaining content alternatives for the variable content section.

26. The method of claim 23, further comprising:

presenting, in response to an action by the consumer with respect to one of the variable content sections, at least one of the remaining content alternatives for the variable content section in place of the first content alternative for the variable content section.

27. The method of claim 23, wherein evaluating the content alternatives with respect to a consumer profile of the consumer further comprises:

comparing a target vector of attributes associated with a content alternative with a vector of attributes associated with the consumer profile.

28. The method of claim 27, further comprising:

selecting at least one attribute from the target vector using a relevancy vector comprising relevancy values corresponding to at least one attribute of the target vector; and

comparing only those attributes of the target vector for which the relevancy values are exceed a threshold.

29. The method of claim 28, wherein the relevancy value determines a relative importance of attributes of the target vector.

30. The method of claim 29, wherein evaluating the content alternatives with respect to a consumer profile of the consumer further comprises:

evaluating a Boolean query with respect to facts derived from transactions of the consumer.

31. The method of claim 23, wherein evaluating the content alternatives with respect to a consumer profile of the consumer further comprises:

evaluating a Boolean query with respect to logical abstractions derived from an attribute vector describing attributes of the consumer.

32. The method of claim 23, wherein the consumer profile includes a consumer attribute vector, comprising:

a base vector comprising a plurality of base level attributes of the consumer, each base level attribute having a value; and

at least one hierarchical vector comprising at least one aggregate attribute associated with a plurality of base level attributes of the base level vector, and having a value computed as a function of the values of the associated base level attributes.