Patent ID: 9646095
Date: 2017-05-09
CPC Classifications: G06F,G06Q

Claim:
1. A method of automatically maintaining a user profile cookie set using a system having cookie harvesting computing equipment and a user profile database, wherein the user profile cookie set is to be used in browsing publisher websites while simulating an internet user having a user profile, the method comprising: with the cookie harvesting computing equipment, selecting a publisher website to explore; with the cookie harvesting computing equipment, selecting the user profile from the user profile database; with the cookie harvesting computing equipment, selecting a cookie set associated with the user profile; with a web crawler of the cookie harvesting computing equipment, loading the selected publisher website while allowing the selected publisher website to update the selected cookie set; storing the updated cookie set in the user profile database; with advertisement discovery equipment, identifying advertisements that have been placed on the selected publisher website by an advertisement channel that is separate from the advertisement discovery equipment, wherein the advertisements that have been placed on the selected publisher website are associated with the selected user profile; and with the advertisement discovery equipment, identifying placement pathways associated with the identified advertisements that have been placed on the selected publisher website by the advertisement channel.