Measuring deletion of cookies included in browsers used by online system users

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9565090-B1
Application number	US-201314086123-A
Country	US
Kind code	B1
Filing date	Nov 21, 2013
Priority date	Nov 21, 2013
Publication date	Feb 7, 2017
Grant date	Feb 7, 2017

Abstract

An online system determines a frequency with which its users delete information stored in a browser on client devices associated with each user. When a user accesses the online system, the online system determines a user identifier associated with the user and determines if one or more conditions are satisfied based on information received from a browser used to access the online system. If a condition is satisfied, the online system communicates an instruction to the browser to communicate information associated with a third party and the user identifier to the third party. Information previously stored in the browser and associated with the user identifier is compared to information associated with the user identifier received from the browser. Deletion of information stored in the browser is determined when stored information associated with the user identifier differs from received information associated with the user identifier.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method comprising:
responsive to receiving a request to connect to an online system from each of a plurality of client devices associated with a plurality of users of the online system, for each request:
retrieving user identifying information associated with the user,
retrieving a cookie from a client device from which a request was received associated with a user of the online system, and
storing information describing a status of the retrieved cookie in association with user identifying information associated with the user of the online system in a plurality of logged statuses of the retrieved cookies, the stored information comprising at least one or more timestamps and one or more browser cookies, each of the at least one or more timestamps and the one or more browser cookies associated with the retrieved user identifying information, wherein storing information describing the status of the retrieved cookie in association with user identifying information associated with the user of the online system in the log plurality of logged statuses of the retrieved cookies comprises:
determining whether one or more conditions are satisfied based at least in part on the retrieved cookie and the user identifying information, wherein determining whether the one or more conditions are satisfied based at least in part on the retrieved cookie and the user identifying information comprises:
determining a time associated with the received request to connect to the online system,
determining a time when the user most recently connected to the online system based on the retrieved cookie, and
determining whether a difference between the time associated with the received request and the time when the user most recently connected to the online system equals or exceeds a threshold value; and
storing the information describing the status of the retrieved cookie if at least one condition is satisfied, wherein storing the information describing the status of the retrieved cookie if at least one condition is satisfied comprises:
 storing the information describing the status of the retrieved cookie if the difference equals or exceeds the threshold value; and

comparing, for each of a plurality of the user identifying information, the plurality of logged statuses of the retrieved cookies associated with matching user identifying information, wherein comparing identifies at least one or more changes in the stored information; and
determining a metric describing a frequency with which the retrieved cookies stored in the client device from which the request was received are deleted for the plurality of users of the online system are based at least in part on the comparing, the frequency determined based at least on the one or more changes in the stored information.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein determining the metric describing a frequency with which the retrieved cookies stored in the client device from which the request was received are deleted for the plurality of users of the online system are based at least in part on the comparing comprises:
determining the user of the online system deleted cookies stored in the client device if a cookie included in the log associated with the user of the online system and associated with a prior connection to the online system by the user does not match the cookie retrieved from the client device from which the request associated with the user was received.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein determining whether the one or more conditions are satisfied based at least in part on the retrieved cookie and the user identifying information comprises:
determining user identifying information associated with a prior connection to the online system from the client device based on the retrieved cookie; and
determining if the user identifying information associated with the prior connection to the online system matches the user identifying information associated with the user.

4. The method of claim 3 , wherein storing the information describing the status of the retrieved cookie if the at least one condition is satisfied comprises:
storing the information describing the status of the retrieved cookie if the user identifying information associated with the prior connection to the online system does not match the user identifying information associated with the user.

5. A method comprising:
receiving a request to connect to an online system from a client device associated with a user of the online system;
retrieving a first identifying information stored in a browser executing on the client device, the first identifying information stored by the online system;
retrieving a user identifying information associated with the user by the online system based at least in part on the retrieved first identifying information;
determining whether one or more conditions are satisfied based at least in part on the retrieved first identifying information stored in the browser by the online system and the retrieved user identifying information, wherein determining whether one or more conditions are satisfied based at least in part on the retrieved first identifying information stored in the browser by the online system and the retrieved user identifying information comprises:
determining a time associated with the received request to connect to the online system,
determining a time when the user most recently connected to the online system based on the retrieved information stored in the browser by the online system, and
determining whether a difference between the time associated with the received request and the time when the user most recently connected to the online system equals or exceeds a threshold value; and

modifying the first identifying information stored by the online system in the browser executing on the client device, the modifying based at least in part on the request from the client device to connect to the online system;
sending a request to the browser to communicate a second identifying information stored in the browser executing on the client device by a third party system, and sending the retrieved user identifying information to the third party system responsive to at least one of the one or more conditions being satisfied, the second identifying information based on the modified first identifying information;
receiving third identifying information from the third party system stored at different times in the browser executing on the client device by the third party system, the third identifying information associated with the retrieved user identifying information, the third identifying information comprising at least one or more timestamps and one or more browser cookies;
comparing, for each of the received third identifying information, the at least one or more timestamps and one or more browser cookies stored at different times by the third party system, each of the at least one or more timestamps and the one or more browser cookies associated with the retrieved user identifying information associated with the user; and
determining a metric describing a frequency with which the user deletes at least one of the one or more third identifying information stored in the browser executing on the client device based at least in part on the comparing, the metric determined based at least in part on the received one or more third identifying information from the third party system, the frequency determined based at least on the stored one or more third identifying information at different times.

6. The method of claim 5 , wherein determining the metric describing the frequency with which the user deletes at least one of the one or more third identifying information stored in the browser executing on the client device based at least i

Assignees

• Facebook Inc

Inventors

• Maykov Alexey
• Huettl Ryan Edward
• Vijayakanthan Anirudhan
• Mathur Nipun

Classifications

• H04L43/10 Primary

  Active monitoring, e.g. heartbeat, ping or trace-route · CPC title

• H04L43/14 Primary

  using software, i.e. software packages (network security related monitoring H04L63/1408) · CPC title

• H04L67/53

  using third party service providers · CPC title

• H04L67/146

  Markers for unambiguous identification of a particular session, e.g. session cookie or URL-encoding · CPC title

• H04L67/02

  based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP] · CPC title