Method and apparatus for tagging network traffic using extensible fields in message headers

A method for improving the selection of media for delivery to a targeted user, comprising:

• determining, at a server, user information for a user;
• generating, at the server, a user identifier for the user from the determined user information;
• receiving, at the server from a requester associated with a destination site, a decode request to decode tagged network traffic, wherein the tagged network traffic was transmitted to the destination site from a network routing device, and wherein the network routing device had tagged intercepted network traffic to create the tagged network traffic, the tagged network traffic including a request identifier comprising the user identifier encrypted in an alphanumeric string;
• decoding, at the server, the tagged network traffic to obtain the user identifier;
• retrieving, at the server, stored user information associated with the user identifier;
• and
• transmitting, at the server, the stored user information to the requester.

A method for improving the selection of media for delivery to a targeted user, comprising:

• determining, by a network routing device, user information for a user;
• generating, by the network routing device, a user identifier for the user from the determined user information;
• tagging, with the network routing device, network traffic that is bound for a destination site, the tagging including:
• generating a request identifier by encrypting the user identifier in an alphanumeric string, and
• adding the request identifier to the network traffic to generate tagged network traffic;
• and
• transmitting, by the network routing device, the tagged network traffic to the destination site, the destination site receiving stored user information from a server after the destination site transmitted a decode request to a server to decode the tagged network traffic.