Combining personalization and privacy locally on devices

• US 9,589,149 B2
• Filed: 11/30/2012
• Issued: 03/07/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 11/30/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Livshits, Benjamin, Davidson, Andrew Joseph
• Primary Examiner(s): Homayounmehr, Farid
• Assistant Examiner(s): LWIN, MAUNG T
• Application Number:
  US13/689,785
• Publication Number:
  US 20140157422A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,558 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/6245 Protecting personal data, e.g. for financial or medical purposes

Abstract

A profiling service may determine, local to a device, user profile attributes associated with a device user based on interaction of the device user with the device, based on device-local monitoring of device user interactions with the device, and may store the user profile attributes in a memory. The profiling service may be configured as an augmentation to a device operating system of the device. A profile exposure component may manage exposure of information associated with the user profile attributes to applications operating locally on the device, without exposure to the applications or to third parties of information determined as sensitive to the device user.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

a device that includes at least one hardware device processor, and

a computer readable storage medium storing instructions for execution by the at least one hardware device processor, the instructions, when executed, causing one or more of the at least one hardware device processor to;

determine, local to the device, user profile attributes associated with a device user based on interaction of the device user with the device, based on device-local monitoring of device user interactions with the device, and to store the user profile attributes in a memory, the user profile attributes determined by a profiling service configured as an augmentation to a device operating system of the device;

determine, local to the device, a personalized user profile representation associated with the device user based on the user profile attributes; and

manage exposure of information associated with the determined personalized user profile representation to one or more applications operating locally on the device, while maintaining underlying user data that is used for determining the personalized user profile representation, private to the device operating system of the device, and from the one or more applications.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein:

the device includes a mobile device, and

the device operating system includes a mobile device operating system.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the personalized user profile representation is determined by a personalization service that is configured as one or more of:

an augmentation to the device operating system, or

a service implemented within one or more individual applications embedded on the device.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein:

the management of the exposure of the information includes providing one or more personalization application program interfaces (APIs) that expose information associated with the obtained user profile attributes to one or more applications running on the device.

5. The system of claim 3, wherein:

at least one of the one or more applications operating locally on the device is configured for modification to interact with at least one of the APIs to provide content personalized to the device user.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the instructions, when executed, cause one or more of the at least one hardware device processor to:

determine personalized content for the device user based on the obtained user profile attributes, and

perform, via a privileged service, automatic personalization within the device operating system.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the instructions, when executed, cause one or more of the at least one hardware device processor to:

obtain an encrypted user interest profile based on the obtained user profile attributes and initiate transmission of the encrypted user interest profile for backup storage on one or more other devices that are external to the device.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein:

at least one of the applications operating locally on the device interacts with one or more privacy filters that prevent private information exposure.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the instructions, when executed, cause one or more of the at least one hardware device processor to:

parse and classify a plurality of streams of data that include information related to the device user, within the device operating system of the device.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the instructions, when executed, cause one or more of the at least one hardware device processor to:

perform personal preference mining operations by parsing and classifying the plurality of streams of data, the personal preference mining including one or more of;

location mining,

browser history mining,

electronic mail (email) mining, or

Short Message Service (SMS) mining.

11. The system of claim 9, wherein:

the plurality of streams of data include one or more of;

a user electronic mail (email) stream of data,

a Short Message Service (SMS) stream of data,

a social network stream of data, or

a network communication stream of data.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein the instructions, when executed, cause one or more of the at least one hardware device processor to:

control an ad library manager interacting with one or more privacy filters, local to the device, to expose personalized information of the device user to one or more ad library components embedded on the device, without exposure to the one or more ad library components of information determined as sensitive to the device user, and

obtain, via a user selection interface, one or more user preferences indicating one or more device user permissions associated with information associated with the device user.

13. The system of claim 1, wherein:

the device operating system is augmented with a personalization platform that determines, local to the device, the personalized user profile representation that includes a personalized user profile associated with the device user based on interaction of the device user with the device, based on device-local monitoring of device/user interactions, and that stores the personalized user profile in the memory.

14. A method comprising:

determining, local to a device, a personalized user profile associated with a device user based on interaction of the device user with the device, based on device-local monitoring of device operating system activities, and

storing the personalized user profile in a memory, via a personalization platform configured as an augmentation to a device operating system of the device; and

managing exposure of the determined personalized user profile to one or more applications operating locally on the device, without exposure to the applications of information determined as sensitive to the device user,

maintaining underlying user data that is used for determining the personalized user profile, private to the device operating system of the device, and from the one or more applications.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein:

managing the exposure includes managing the exposure based on one or more personalization application program interfaces (APIs) configured to expose information associated with the personalized user profile to the one or more applications.

16. The method of claim 14, wherein:

determining the personalized user profile includes determining an approximation of one or more personal attributes associated with the device user, and

the personalized user profile includes one or more weighted persona profiles associated with the device user, the weighted persona profiles having representations based on one or more Bayesian classifiers.

17. The method of claim 14, further comprising:

determining at least one skin for association with at least one device application, based on the personalized user profile.

18. The method of claim 14, further comprising:

determining a personalized display of items associated with interaction of the device user with the device, based on the personalized user profile, wherein

the personalized display of items includes one or more of;

an ordering of presentation of list items, wherein the ordering is based on preferences that are determined based on the personalized user profile associated with the device user,

text displayed with boldly displayed features, for text that is determined as having a high relevance to the personalized profile,

text displayed as highlighted text, for text that is determined as having a high relevance to the personalized user profile,

text displayed with dimly displayed features, for text that is determined as having low relevance to the personalized user profile, or

a graphical display of the items, with a first color applied to at least a first portion of the items, and a second color applied to at least a second portion of the items, wherein the first and second colors are selected based on the personalized user profile, wherein;

the personalized display of items includes one or more of;

visual graphical text display,

audio display,

tactile display, or

sensory display.

19. A computer program product comprising a hardware computer-readable storage medium storing executable code that causes at least one data processing apparatus to:

determine, via a device processor, local to a device having a device-local operating system, user profile attributes associated with a device user based on interaction of the device user with the device, based on device-local monitoring of device operating system activities associated with actions of the device user;

store the user profile attributes in a memory; and

expose personalization information of the device user to one or more ad library components embedded on the device, without exposure to the one or more ad library components of information determined as sensitive to the device user, via interaction with one or more privacy filters, local to the device, maintaining underlying user data that is used for determining the determined personalized user profile attributes, private to the device-local operating system, and private from the one or more ad library components.

20. The computer program product of claim 19, wherein:

the ad library components are isolated from other application code for minimization of leaks of information determined as sensitive to the device user.