Method and apparatus for responding to end-user request for information-personalization

A method of supplementing a search request with information that reflects a user's recent navigation behavior among documents accessible via a network, the method including:

• operating a behavior watching module on the user's computer, collecting information regarding the user's recent navigation behavior that includes
• identifying documents electronically accessed by the user;
• categorizing the documents accessed;
• indicating when documents in the categories were accessed;
• and
• submitting at least a summary of the recent navigation behavior information along with a query to one or more servers including a search engine;
• and
• receiving from the search engine a set of results biased to an interest category corresponding to the submitted recent navigation behavior information.

A method of personalizing content returned in response to a keyword search term submitted by a user to a search engine, the method including:

• receiving, from a behavior watching modules operating the user's computer, information regarding the user's navigation behaviors which includes
• includes accessing documents that are not all associated with a particular server-side behavior data collection network, and
• further includes at least one of a mouse click-through, enter keystroke or other selection action and at least one keyword derived from context of the selection action;
• determining a plurality of likely budget categories to which documents responsive to the search term plausibly would be of interest;
• and
• selecting at least one among the plurality of likely budget categories using the navigation information.

A method of supplementing a search requests with information that reflects a user's recent navigation behavior among documents accessible via a network, the method including:

• operating a behavior watching module on the user's computer, collecting information regarding the user's navigation behavior that includes
• identifying documents electronically accessed by the user;
• categorizing the documents accessed;
• indicating when documents in the categories were accessed;
• and
• submitting at least a summary of the navigation behavior information along with an information request to a search engine;
• and
• receiving from the search engine a set of results biased to a likely budget corresponding to the submitted navigation behavior information.