Inference detection enabled by internet advertising

A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing instructions that when executed by a computer cause the computer to perform a method for performing inference detection from web advertisements, the method comprising:

• receiving a set of topic words from an end-user;
• for each topic word in the received set, performing a search query on the topic word over a computer network using an Internet search engine;
• receiving, by the computing device and from the Internet search engine over the computer network, search results corresponding to at least a first topic word and a second topic word in the set of topic words;
• identifying a first set of sponsored advertisement Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) from a search result corresponding to the first topic word;
• identifying a second set of sponsored advertisement URLs from a search result corresponding to the second topic word;
• generating a bipartite graph based on the topic words and the sponsored advertisement URLs identified from the search results of the topic words, wherein a first set of vertices of the bipartite graph is associated with one or more of the topic words, wherein a second set of vertices of the bipartite graph is associated with one or more sponsored advertisement URLs, and wherein a respective edge of the bipartite graph maps a sponsored advertisement URL to an associated topic word;
• generating a first collapsed graph from the bipartite graph by collapsing the vertices associated with the sponsored advertisement URLs into a set of edges between topic words, wherein there exists an edge between two topic words in the first collapsed graph for a pair of topic words that are coupled to a common sponsored advertisement URL through corresponding edges of the bipartite graph;
• and
• responsive to determining that a number of edges coupling the first topic word and the second topic word in the first collapsed graph exceeds a predetermined plural threshold, producing a result which indicates the first topic word and the second topic word as being related.

An apparatus for performing inference detection from web advertisements, comprising:

• a processor;
• a memory;
• a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium coupled to the processor storing instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the apparatus to perform a method comprising:
• receiving a set of topic words from an end-user;
• for each topic word in the received set, performing a search query on the topic word over a computer network using an Internet search engine;
• receiving, by the computing device and from the Internet search engine over the computer network, search results corresponding to at least a first topic word and a second topic word in the set of topic words;
• identifying a first set of sponsored advertisement Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) from a search result corresponding to the first topic word;
• identifying a second set of sponsored advertisement URLs from a search result corresponding to the second topic word;
• generating a bipartite graph based on the topic words and the sponsored advertisement URLs identified from the search results of the topic words, wherein a first set of vertices of the bipartite graph is associated with one or more of the topic words, wherein a second set of vertices of the bipartite graph is associated with one or more sponsored advertisement URLs, and wherein a respective edge of the bipartite graph maps a sponsored advertisement URL to an associated topic word;
• generating a first collapsed graph from the bipartite graph by collapsing the vertices associated with the sponsored advertisement URLs into a set of edges between topic words, wherein there exists an edge between two topic words in the first collapsed graph for a pair of topic words that are coupled to a common sponsored advertisement URL through corresponding edges of the bipartite graph;
• and
• responsive to determining that a number of edges coupling the first topic word and the second topic word in the first collapsed graph exceeds a predetermined plural threshold, producing a result which indicates the first topic word and the second topic word as being related.