Advice provided for offering highly targeted advice without compromising individual privacy

• US 7,246,150 B1
• Filed: 03/09/2000
• Issued: 07/17/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 09/01/1998
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: BigFix, Inc. (International Business Machines Corporation)
• Inventors: Lippincott, Lisa Ellen, Donoho, David Leigh, Hindawi, David Salim
• Primary Examiner(s): Winder; Patrice L.
• Application Number:
  US09/522,341
• Time in Patent Office: 2,686 Days
• Field of Search: 709/204, 709/206, 709/225, 709/207, 707/3, 707/10, 345/329, 345/330, 345/331
• US Class Current: 709/204
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation

Abstract

The invention disclosed herein enables a collection of computers and associated communications infrastructure to offer a new communications process which allows information providers to broadcast information to a population of information consumers. The information may be targeted to those consumers who have a precisely formulated need for the information. This targeting may be based on information which is inaccessible to other communications protocols. The targeting also includes a time element. Information can be brought to the attention of the consumer precisely when it has become applicable, which may occur immediately upon receipt of the message, but may also occur long after the message arrives. The communications process may operate without intruding on consumers who do not exhibit the precisely-specified need for the information, and it may operate without compromising the security or privacy of the consumers who participate.

Claims

1. A computer communications system for providing advice consumers with targeted information without requiring the disclosure of private profile data, the computer system comprising:

at least one advice site configured to;

receive information from at least one content provider, said information including profile information describing advice consumers for whom said information is targeted;

make said information available to at least one reader running on a client advice consumer computer;

wherein the at least one reader can access a user profile of the client advice consumer computer on which it is running;

wherein the at least one reader can access the included profile information describing advice consumers for whom said received information is targeted;

receive at least one request from at least one reader for information received from at least one content provider, responsive to a determination that the included profile information describing advice consumers for whom said received information is targeted matches the user profile of the client advice consumer computer on which the at least one reader is running;

provide said received information to at least one client advice consumer computer only in response to receiving said at least one request from at least one reader;

wherein said at least one content provider and said at least one advice site cannot access any user profile of any client advice consumer computer, and

wherein at least one user profile of at least one client advice consumer computer comprises at least some private data.

2. The system of claim 1, said included profile information describing advice consumers for whom said received information is targeted further comprising:

a set of any of demographic, biologic, geographical, and other empirical models used to infer statistically that a certain condition is highly likely to be true, even when it cannot be verified by direct calculation, measurement, or formal logical deduction, by using any of information which may be publicly available, information present in a user profile, information directly measurable, or information available from third parties.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein said data comprise financial data.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein said data comprise transaction data.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein said data comprise health or medical data.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein said included profile information describing advice consumers for whom said received information is targeted comprises assertions that certain combinations of prescription drugs, certain interactions between genetic or blood type information or other personal medical history and certain behavior or illness or drug prescriptions.

7. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

an inspector library containing executable code which is invoked as part of a continual relevance evaluation process; and

one or more remote inspector methods for remotely performing any of mathematico-logical calculations, executing computational algorithms, returning the results of system calls, accessing the contents of storage devices, and querying said communicating devices.

8. The system of claim 7, said one or more remote inspector methods comprising any of medical records inspectors, remote financial records inspectors, and remote drug prescription inspectors.

9. The system of claim 7, wherein said one or more remote inspector methods comprise any of server side components and client side components.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein a connection between said client and said server is secured by a cryptographic protocol.

11. The system of claim 9, wherein the identity of a client requesting information is authenticated by a server using an authentication protocol.

12. The system of claim 7, wherein said one or more remote inspector methods comprise server side components for providing remote information access.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein a consumer receives advice via said remote information access, and said consumer'"'"'s personal information is included in said server side components, only if said consumer authorizes inclusion of said consumer'"'"'s personal information in said server side components.

14. The system of claim 7, further comprising:

means for a consumer subscribing to advice sites which make use of said remote inspectors.

15. The system of claim 7, wherein a remote inspector method on a consumer machine establishes a connection with an information server and performs one or more queries to determine if relevant information is present on said information server with regard to said consumer;

and wherein said information is gathered by said server.

16. A computer implemented communications method for providing advice consumers with targeted information without requiring the disclosure of private profile data, the method comprising the steps of:

receiving, information from at least one content provider by at least one advice site, said information including profile information describing advice consumers for whom said information is targeted;

making said information available to at least one reader running on a client advice consumer computer;

wherein the at least one reader can access a user profile of the client advice consumer computer on which it is running;

wherein the at least one reader can access the included profile information describing advice consumers for whom said received information is targeted;

receiving at least one request from at least one reader for information received from at least one content provider, responsive to a determination that the included profile information describing advice consumers for whom said received information is targeted matches the user profile of the client advice consumer computer on which the at least one reader is running;

providing said received information to at least one client advice consumer computer only in response to receiving said at least one request from at least one reader;

wherein said at least one content provider and said at least one advice site cannot access any user profile of any client advice consumer computer; and

wherein at least one user profile of at least one client advice consumer computer comprises at least some private data.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein said data comprise financial data.

18. The method of claim 16, wherein said data comprise health or medical data.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein said included profile information describing advice consumers for whom said received information is targeted comprises assertions that certain combinations of prescription drugs, certain interactions between genetic or blood type information or other personal medical history and certain behavior or Illness or drug prescriptions.

20. The method of claim 16, further comprising the steps of:

providing an inspector library containing executable code which is invoked as part of a continual relevance evaluation process; and

providing one or more remote inspector methods for remotely performing any of mathematico-logical calculations, executing computational algorithms, returning the results of system calls, accessing the contents of storage devices, and querying said communicating devices.

21. The method of claim 20, said one or more remote inspector methods comprising any of medical records inspectors, remote financial records inspectors, and remote drug prescription inspectors.

22. The method of claim 20, wherein said one or more remote inspector methods comprise any of server side components and client side components.

23. The method of claim 20, wherein said one or more remote inspector methods comprise server side components for providing remote information access.

24. The method of claim 20, further comprising the step of:

a consumer subscribing to advice sites which make use of said remote inspectors.

25. The method of claim 20, wherein a remote inspector method on a consumer machine establishes a connection with an information server and performs one or more queries to determine if relevant information is present on said information server with regard to said consumer;

and wherein said information is gathered by said server.

26. The method of claim 20, wherein a connection between said client and said server is secured by a cryptographic protocol.

27. The method of claim 20, wherein the identity of a client requesting information is authenticated by a server using an authentication protocol.