Systems and methods to maintain user privacy whtle providing recommendations

An apparatus for generating noise to protect privacy of user selections, comprising at least one processor coupled to a memory, the memory holding program instructions that when executed by the at least one processor, cause the apparatus to perform:

• presenting a first subset of a plurality of information items via an interface to a user, and receiving via the interface, a first selection of at least one item by the user from the first subset of the plurality of items;
• assembling a first request containing the first selection and a selection of another subset of the plurality of items selected by the at least one processor, wherein each item of the first request defines one of a plurality of clusters;
• transmitting the first request to a recommender server;
• performing recursive operations for assembling at least one subsequent request by the user containing at least one subsequent selection and selection noise indicating a superset of an actual selection history for the user, and
• generating the selection noise for each item in the subsequent selection at least in part by choosing from each cluster a selection noise item having a ranked measure proportional to a ranked measure of the at least one item selected by the user, and appending the selection noise item to the next subsequent request.

An apparatus for generating noise to protect privacy of user selections, comprising:

• means for presenting a first subset of a plurality of information items via an interface to a user and for receiving via the interface, a first selection of at least one item by the user from the first subset of the plurality of items;
• means for assembling a first request containing the first selection and a selection of another subset of the plurality of items selected by the at least one processor, wherein each item of the first request defines one of a plurality of clusters;
• means for transmitting the first request to a recommender server;
• and
• means for performing recursive operations for assembling at least one subsequent request by the user containing at least one subsequent selection and selection noise indicating a superset of an actual selection history for the user;
• and
• means for generating the selection noise for each item in the subsequent selection at least in part by choosing from each cluster a selection noise item having a ranked measure proportional to a ranked measure of the at least one item selected by the user, and appending the selection noise item to the next subsequent request.