Methods and apparatus to determine impressions using distributed demographic information

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11068944-B2
Application number	US-201916374533-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Apr 3, 2019
Priority date	Sep 22, 2010
Publication date	Jul 20, 2021
Grant date	Jul 20, 2021

Abstract

A disclosed example to monitor access to media includes; a communication interface to send a uniform resource locator (URL) scrape instruction to a client computer in response to a first request from the client computer, the first request indicative of access to the media at the client computer; a processor in circuit with the communication interface; and memory including machine readable instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to: provide the URL scrape instruction to the communication interface when a URL of a host website of the media is not obtainable by the processor from the first request, the URL scrape instruction to cause the client computer to: (1) read the URL of the host website from an address bar of a web browser at the client computer, and (2) send the URL of the host website to a server; and store a logged impression of the media in association with the URL of the host website from the client computer.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A server to monitor access to media, the server comprising:
a communication interface to send a uniform resource locator (URL) scrape instruction to a client computer in response to a first request from the client computer, the first request indicative of access to the media at the client computer;
a processor in circuit with the communication interface; and
memory including machine readable instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to:
provide the URL scrape instruction to the communication interface when a URL of a host website of the media is not obtainable by the processor from the first request, the URL scrape instruction to cause the client computer to: (1) read the URL of the host website from an address bar of a web browser at the client computer, and (2) send the URL of the host website to the server; and
store a logged impression of the media in association with the URL of the host website from the client computer.

2. The server of claim 1 , wherein the machine readable instructions are to cause the processor to store demographic information corresponding to an identifier of the client computer in association with the logged impression.

3. The server of claim 2 , wherein the communication interface is to receive the identifier as a cookie from the client computer in the first request, the cookie associated with a user corresponding to the demographic information.

4. The server of claim 1 , wherein the first request includes an identifier corresponding to a user of the client computer, the communication interface to send a response to the client computer, the response to instruct the client computer to send a second request to a second server, the machine readable instructions to further cause the processor to:
store first demographic information in association with the logged impression, the first demographic information associated with the identifier corresponding to the user, and the first demographic information stored by the server after the first demographic information is obtained from the user during enrollment in a panel, and
merge second demographic information from the second server with the first demographic information based on the second server associating the second demographic information with the access to the media at the client computer.

5. The server of claim 1 , wherein, when the client computer is not identifiable by the server at a first internet domain, the communication interface is further to send a response to the client computer, the response to instruct the client computer to send a second request to a second server at a second internet domain, the second request to be indicative of the access to the media at the client computer.

6. The server of claim 5 , wherein the machine readable instructions are to further cause the processor to store demographic information from the second internet domain in association with the logged impression, the demographic information corresponding to the second request.

7. The server of claim 1 , wherein the media is presented by the web browser in an ad iFrame of the host website, the ad iFrame associated with a second URL different from the URL of the host website.

8. The server of claim 1 , wherein the communication interface is to send a cookie to the client computer, and the machine readable instructions are to cause the processor to store demographic information corresponding to the cookie in association with the logged impression.

9. A tangible computer readable medium comprising instructions that, when executed, cause a machine to at least:
send a uniform resource locator (URL) scrape instruction to a client computer in response to a first request from the client computer, a URL of a host website of media is not obtainable by the machine from the first request, the first request indicative of access to the media at the client computer, the URL scrape instruction to cause the client computer to: (1) read the URL of the host web site from an address bar of a web browser at the client computer, and (2) send the URL of the host web site to a server; and
store a logged impression of the media in association with the URL of the host website from the client computer.

10. The tangible computer readable medium as defined in claim 9 , wherein the instructions, when executed, further cause the machine to store demographic information corresponding to an identifier of the client computer in association with the logged impression.

11. The tangible computer readable medium as defined in claim 10 , wherein the instructions, when executed, further cause the machine to access the identifier as a cookie from the client computer in the first request, the cookie associated with a user corresponding to the demographic information.

12. The tangible computer readable medium as defined in claim 9 , wherein the instructions, when executed, further cause the machine to:
send a response to the client computer, the response to instruct the client computer to send a second request to a second server;
store first demographic information in association with the logged impression, the first demographic information associated with an identifier corresponding to a user, and the first demographic information obtained from the user during enrollment in a panel; and
merge second demographic information from the second server with the first demographic information based on the second server associating the second demographic information with the access to the media at the client computer.

13. The tangible computer readable medium as defined in claim 9 , wherein the instructions, when executed, further cause the machine to:
when the client computer is not identifiable by the server at a first internet domain, send a response to the client computer, the response to instruct the client computer to send a second request to a second server at a second internet domain, the second request to be indicative of the access to the media at the client computer.

14. The tangible computer readable medium as defined in claim 13 , wherein the instructions, when executed, further cause the machine to store demographic information from the second internet domain in association with the logged impression, the demographic information corresponding to the second request.

15. The tangible computer readable medium as defined in claim 9 , wherein the media is presented by the web browser in an ad iFrame of the host web site, the ad iFrame pertaining to a second URL different from the URL of the host web site.

16. The tangible computer readable medium as defined in claim 9 , wherein the instructions, when executed, further cause the machine to:
send a cookie to the client computer; and
store demographic information corresponding to the cookie in association with the logged impression.

17. A method to monitor access to media, the method comprising:
sending a uniform resource locator (URL) scrape instruction from a server to a client computer in response to a first request from the client computer, a URL of a host website of the media is not obtainable by the server from the first request, the first request indicative of access to the media at the client computer, the URL scrape instruction to cause the client computer to: (1) read the URL of the host website from an address bar of a web browser at the client computer, and (2) send the URL of the host website to the server; and
storing a logged impression of the media in association with the URL of the host website from the client computer.

Assignees

• Nielsen Co Us Llc

Inventors

• Mazumdar Mainak
• Geraghty Kevin
• Heffernan Ronan
• Kalus Mark
• Paparo Ari
• Splaine Steven J
• Deliyannis Alexandros

Classifications

• H04L67/535

  Tracking the activity of the user (network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34) · CPC title

• H04L67/56

  Provisioning of proxy services (store-and-forward switching systems in data switching networks H04L12/54) · CPC title

• H04L67/01

  Protocols · CPC title

• G06F16/951

  Indexing; Web crawling techniques · CPC title

• H04L67/1097

  for distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS] · CPC title