Systems and methods for obfuscated audience measurement

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10600076-B2
Application number	US-201414459671-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Aug 14, 2014
Priority date	Aug 14, 2014
Publication date	Mar 24, 2020
Grant date	Mar 24, 2020

Abstract

A panel provider may transmit queries to an audience measurement server to retrieve measurement data for subsets of clients selected via one or more characteristics, such as characteristics of the client, characteristics of the client's device, characteristics of the received content, etc. To protect panel data, the panel provider need not identify these characteristics to the audience measurement server; rather, queries may be made via a plurality of filters that may be applied to client and/or content identifiers. Because the audience measurement server may apply the filters or data structures to select client data for retrieval without knowing what the filter represents, the panel provider's reason for any particular query may be hidden. For further obfuscation, the panel provider may provide a plurality of filters that individually may identify large numbers of clients, but when intersected or applied together, identify only the clients for whom measurement data is required.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method for online audience measurement via obscured characteristics, comprising:
receiving, by an audience measurement server, from each of a plurality of client devices, a communication transmitted from said client device comprising an identification of an item of content received from a content provider and an identifier of said client device comprising a mask identifying a plurality of obscured characteristics received from a panel measurement service;
receiving, by the audience measurement server from the panel measurement service, a request for measurement data of panel members of said panel measurement service, the request comprising a first data array comprising a first probabilistic data structure identifying a hashed first characteristic obscured from the audience measurement server and a second data array comprising a second probabilistic data structure identifying a hashed second characteristic obscured from the audience measurement server;
comparing, by the audience measurement server and with a logical biconditional calculation, the mask identifying the plurality of obscured characteristics from each of the plurality of client devices to the first characteristic obscured from the audience measurement server of the first data array to select a first subset of the received communications having the first characteristic;
comparing, by the audience measurement server and with the logical biconditional calculation, the mask identifying the plurality of obscured characteristics from each of the plurality of client device to the second characteristic obscured from the audience measurement server of the second data array to select a second subset of the received communications having the second characteristic;
selecting, by the audience measurement server, a third subset of the received communications comprising the intersection of the first subset and the second subset;
aggregating, by the audience measurement server and based on the third subset of the received communications being below a predetermined threshold, the first subset of the received communications having the first characteristic and the second subset of the received communications having the second characteristic to generate a first audience measurement value for the first subset and a second audience measurement value for the second subset; and
transmitting, by the audience measurement server to the panel measurement service, the first audience measurement value and the second audience measurement value.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the identifier of the client device in each received communication further comprises a first identifier of the client device provided by the panel measurement service, and a second identifier of the client device provided by a manufacturer of the client device.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein comparing the received communications to the first data array to select the first subset of the received communications comprises identifying an intersection between a first identifier of a first client device and the first data array; and wherein comparing the received communications to the second data array to select the second subset of the received communications comprises identifying an intersection between a second identifier of the first client device and the second data array.

4. The method of claim 2 , wherein the first identifier of the client device comprises a data array generated by the panel measurement service; and wherein comparing the received communications to the first data array to select the first subset of the received communications further comprises selecting a received communication for inclusion in the first subset, responsive to a non-zero intersection between the first identifier of the received communication and the first data array of the request.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising hashing each identifier of a client device in the first subset of the received communications with a first hash function, and hashing each identifier of a client device in the second subset of the received communications with a second, different hash function, responsive to the determination; and
wherein transmitting the generated measurement data further comprises transmitting the hashed identifiers of the client devices.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first data array or second data array comprises a bitmap.

7. A system for online audience measurement via obscured characteristics, comprising:
a device, in communication with a plurality of client devices and a panel measurement server, executing an audience measurement server configured for:
receiving, from each of a plurality of client devices, a communication transmitted from said client device comprising an identification of an item of content received from a content provider and an identifier of said client device comprising a mask identifying a plurality of obscured characteristics received from a panel measurement service;
receiving, from the panel measurement service, a request for measurement data of panel members of said panel measurement service, the request comprising a first probabilistic data structure identifying a hashed first characteristic obscured from the audience measurement server and a second data array comprising a second probabilistic data structure identifying a hashed second characteristic obscured from the audience measurement server;
comparing, with a logical biconditional calculation, the mask identifying the plurality of obscured characteristics from each of the plurality of client devices to the first characteristic obscured from the audience measurement server of the first data array to select a first subset of the received communications having the first characteristic;
comparing, with the logical biconditional calculation, the mask identifying the plurality of obscured characteristics from each of the plurality of client devices to the second characteristic obscured from the audience measurement server of the second data array to select a second subset of the received communications having the second characteristic;
selecting a third subset of the received communications comprising the intersection of the first subset and the second subset;
aggregating, based on the third subset of the received communications being below a predetermined threshold, the first subset of the received communications having the first characteristic and the second subset of the received communications having the second characteristic to generate a first audience measurement value for the first subset and a second audience measurement value for the second subset; and
transmitting, to the panel measurement service, the first audience measurement value and the second audience measurement value.

8. The system of claim 7 , wherein the identifier of the client device in each received communication further comprises a first identifier of the client device provided by the panel measurement service, and a second identifier of the client device provided by a manufacturer of the client device.

9. The system of claim 8 , wherein the audience measurement server is further configured for identifying an intersection between a first identifier of a first client device and the first data array, and identifying an intersection between a second identifier of the first client device and the second data array.

10. The system of claim 8 , wherein the first identifier of the client device comprises a data array generated by the panel measurement service; and wherein the audience measurement server is further configured for selecting a received communication for inclusion in the first subset, responsive to a non-zero intersection

Assignees

• Google Inc
• Google Llc

Inventors

• Mirisola Raimundo
• Gaymond Oliver Thomas

Classifications

• G06Q30/0245 Primary

  Surveys · CPC title

• G06Q30/02 Primary

  Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising · CPC title