Patent ID: 11972460
Assignee: OVERSTOCK.COM, INC.
Field: Computer technology (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC G | IPC G

Claim 0:
1. A system for personalizing electronically generated content provided to a user computer over a network, said system comprising:
a processor;
a memory coupled to the processor;
computer-readable instructions stored in the memory, that when executed by the processor, cause the processor to perform the operations of
(i) tracking user data based on one or more online identifiers, wherein the one or more online identifiers may include one or more of a tracking cookie, email address, user account information, additional tracking cookies based on login into a user account, matching user accounts based on personal information, email addresses matched based on personal information, and IP addresses;
(ii) storing the tracked information on a server;
(iii) associating a plurality of user online identifiers under a master ID by matching one or more online identifiers associated with one user to at least one or more other online identifiers associated with the same user in a database that comprises user online identifiers organized under master IDs,
(iv) tracking, storing, and maintaining user data under the master ID, wherein the user data comprises user interaction information that has a connection to at least one of the user online identifiers matched to said master ID
(v) generating a user ID confidence level for each user online identifier associated under a master ID based on the likelihood that a given online identifier is relevant to the identification of the user;
(vi) defining or associating content usage parameters with each of the plurality of user online identifiers, wherein the content usage parameters are based on the user ID confidence level for each of the plurality of user online identifiers,
(vii) providing, identifying, or selecting a target user online identifier for a user;
(viii) obtaining preliminary personalized electronic content from a content server operable to generate and provide to the server personalized electronic content based on the tracked and captured user online behavior and user demographic information for each of the online identifiers;
(ix) generating personalized content by applying the content usage parameters corresponding to the target user online identifiers to the preliminary personalized electronic content.