Process to Administer Mandatory Restrictions or Accede to User Preferences in a Distributed, Real-Time Market for Advertising to Mobile and Personal Devices

Abstract

Laws, regulations, and self-regulatory processes are beginning to restrict how online advertisers and others interact with users. The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA) restricts the interaction of online businesses with children under thirteen. Revised regulations implementing this statute will restrict behavioral advertising by businesses directed to children and by other business if they have actual knowledge they are dealing with a child under thirteen. The current system of ad placement online relies on a real-time, distributed market where participants usually interact at arms-length through intermediaries (usually online advertising networks) in placing ads. There is currently no process by which COPPA regulations or possible future regulatory or self-regulatory frameworks can be imposed on this system requiring abandonment of the system or processes which can work consistent with the system when used on a mobile or personal device. The disclosure provides a method by which the current system can be retained with minor modification by creating, populating, maintaining, and making available in near real time an opt-out registry that links unique persistent identifiers for mobile and personal devices to restrictions, preferences, and permissions related to such devices. The disclosure also described the integrated and complementary technology that needs to be deployed to support the method.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.