System for extrapolating item characteristics

A method of preventing inappropriate items from being recommended to a user, the method comprising:

• generating substitution associations between first ones of a plurality of items;
• generating behavioral associations between second ones of the plurality of items;
• extrapolating a characteristic from a first set of the plurality of items known to have the characteristic to a first portion of a second set of the plurality of items not known to have the characteristic based at least partly on a strength of the substitution associations, the characteristic representing a feature of the first set of items that is stored in descriptions associated with the first set of items in an electronic catalog but not the second items, wherein the characteristic is adultness and is not an item association;
• and
• selecting a second portion of the second set of the plurality of items that do not have the characteristic as recommendations;
• wherein at least said extrapolating is performed by a computer system comprising computer hardware.

A method of preventing inappropriate items from being recommended to a user, the method comprising:

• identifying a first item in an electronic catalog of items, the first item comprising a first description stored in the electronic catalog, the first description indicating that the first item possesses a characteristic, wherein the characteristic does not refer to an item association with another one of the items in the electronic catalog;
• identifying a second item in the electronic catalog, the second item comprising a second description stored in the electronic catalog, the second description not including the characteristic;
• evaluating the first and second items to determine a quantity representative of a degree of association between the first and second items based on one or more criteria other than the characteristic of the first item;
• inferring that the second item has the characteristic based on the quantity representative of the degree of relationship between the first and second items, rendering the second item potentially inappropriate as a recommendation;
• recommending a set of items from the electronic catalog of items to a user while excluding the second item from the recommended set of items due at least in part to said inferring that the second item has the characteristic;
• wherein at least said inferring is performed by a computer system comprising computer hardware.