Patent ID: 8352316
Filing Date: 2013-01-08
Classification: G06Q

Abstract:
1. A method of conducting an electronic commerce transaction to ensure proper attribution to an affiliate by a merchant, comprising the steps of: sending by the affiliate a request to the merchant for the unique session identifier; receiving by the affiliate the unique session identifier from the merchant; publishing by the affiliate a link to a first website of the affiliate, the link including one of a name of the merchant or an offer from the merchant but not containing the unique session identifier; receiving by the affiliate activation of the link by a customer; redirecting the customer who activated the link to a second website of the merchant; and wherein the step of redirecting comprises the steps of adding by the affiliate the unique session identifier to a sub-domain portion of a domain for the merchant, and passing the customer who activated the link along with the unique session identifier to the second website of the merchant.