Providing advertisement content via an advertisement proxy server

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10248975-B2
Application number	US-201313778392-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Feb 27, 2013
Priority date	Feb 27, 2013
Publication date	Apr 2, 2019
Grant date	Apr 2, 2019

Abstract

An advertisement (ad) proxy server acts as a proxy for serving content of third-party ads to users of an online system, reducing data leakage from users to advertisers. The ad proxy server acts as an intermediate storage and access point for content included in advertisement, such as images and videos. When an advertisement from an advertiser is selected for presentation by the online system, an ad tag identifying the location of the content for the selected ad is retrieved and used to retrieve a copy of the advertisement content. The ad proxy server stores the copy of the advertisement content and generates a modified ad tag identifying the ad proxy server. The modified ad tag is sent to a client device, which retrieves the copy of the advertisement content from the ad proxy server rather than directly from the advertiser.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method comprising:
receiving, at an online system, an ad request to present an advertisement to a client computing device;
accessing, by the online system, a plurality of bid requests from a plurality of different advertisers, each bid request associated with a targeting criteria and an ad tag, the ad tags comprising one or more network addresses identifying one or more locations on one or more computer servers where advertisement content for the advertisement can be obtained;
determining, by the online system, a set of eligible bid requests from the plurality of bid requests by identifying bid requests having targeting criteria matched by one or more characteristics of a user associated with the client computing device;
selecting, by the online system, one of the bid requests from the set of eligible bid requests, the selected bid request associated with a selected ad tag, the selected ad tag identifying an advertiser network address associated with one of the advertisers;
retrieving, by the online system, the advertisement content associated with the selected ad tag from the advertiser network address;
storing, by the online system, a copy of the advertisement content at a proxy network address associated with the ad proxy server wherein storing the copy comprises removing a tracking pixel included in the copy of the advertisement content, the tracking pixel is configured to track web browsing activity associated with the client computing device;
generating, by the online system, a modified ad tag associated with the selected ad tag;
replacing, by the online system, the advertiser network address associated with the selected ad tag with the proxy network address;
responsive to the ad request, sending, from the online system, the modified ad tag to the client computing device;
receiving, at the proxy network address from the client computing device, a content request to obtain the advertisement content; and
responsive to the content request, sending the copy of the advertisement content to the client computing device.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein replacing the advertiser network address with the proxy network address comprises:
appending a network address associated with the ad proxy server to a network address included in the ad tag.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the modified ad tag includes a portion of the selected ad tag.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein a proxy network address specifies a content delivery network not associated with the advertiser.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the online system is also a social networking computer server.

6. A method comprising:
receiving, at an online system, an ad request to present an advertisement to a client computing device;
accessing, by the online system, a plurality of bid requests from a plurality of different advertisers, each bid request associated with a targeting criteria and an ad tag, the ad tags comprising one or more network addresses identifying one or more locations on one or more computer servers where advertisement content for the advertisement can be obtained;
determining, by the online system, a set of eligible bid requests from the plurality of bid requests by identifying bid requests having targeting criteria matched by one or more characteristics of a user associated with the client computing device;
selecting, by the online system, one of the bid requests from the set of eligible bid requests, the selected bid request associated with a selected ad tag, the selected ad tag identifying an advertiser network address associated with one of the advertisers;
retrieving, by the online system, the advertisement content associated with the selected ad tag from the advertiser network address;
sending, from the online system, a copy of the advertisement content to be stored at a proxy network address associated with the ad proxy server, wherein storing the copy comprises removing a tracking pixel included in the copy of the advertisement content, the tracking pixel is configured to track web browsing activity associated with the client computing device;
generating, by the online system, a modified ad tag based on the selected ad tag, the modified ad tag replacing the advertiser network address with the proxy network address; and
responsive to the ad request, sending, from the online system, the modified ad tag to the client computing device wherein the modified ad tag is configured to cause the client computing device to obtain the copy of the advertisement content from the proxy network address.

7. The method of claim 6 , wherein replacing the advertiser network address with the proxy network address comprises:
appending a network address associated with the ad proxy server to a network address included in the ad tag.

8. The method of claim 6 , wherein the modified ad tag includes a portion of the selected ad tag.

9. The method of claim 6 , wherein a proxy network address specifies a content delivery network not associated with the advertiser.

10. The method of claim 6 , wherein the online system is also a social networking computer server.

11. The method of claim 1 , wherein the modified ad tag does not identify a location associated with the advertiser.

12. The method of claim 6 , wherein the modified ad tag does not identify a location associated with the advertiser.

Assignees

• Facebook Inc

Inventors

• Garcia-Martinez Antonio Felipe
• Wu Gang
• Manikarnika Shreehari

Classifications

• G06Q30/0277 Primary

  Online advertisement · CPC title