Abstract:
A system and method for detecting and avoiding attempts at taking the same survey by the same respondent. A respondent is assigned a Global unique identifier (GUID) and the encrypted global identifier is inserted in a “cookie” stored on the user&#39;s computer. Each time a respondent attempts to take a survey, a respondent is identified using a mechanism such as e-mail, computer identifier or the like and a Survey Management system checks to see if this respondent should have a global identifier encoded in a cookie. Based on this review, the Survey Management system can determine whether or not this particular user, whether using different computer systems or under different user accounts has previously taken the survey.

Description:
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS 
       [0001]    The present application claims priority to U.S. Provisional Patent Application 61/054,917 filed on May 21, 2008 entitled “System and Method For Preventing Duplicate Survey Attempts”, which is incorporated fully herein by reference. 
     
    
     TECHNICAL FIELD 
       [0002]    The present invention relates to the taking of surveys and more particularly, to a system and method for preventing or minimizing a user&#39;s attempt at participating in a survey more than once. 
       BACKGROUND INFORMATION 
       [0003]    Surveys, focus groups, market research discussion sessions and the like (collectively referred to as “surveys” in this application), are well-known useful tools for a company to gauge the actual or potential success of a given product or service. Often times, surveys are used by a company to predict the likelihood of success with a given product or to gauge consumer interest in particular types of products, in order to ensure that only likely successful products are developed and marketed. 
         [0004]    Surveys take on many forms including: verbal surveys (connected by telephone, door-to-door or on the street); written (mailed or handed to potential survey takers); and most recently and more predominantly electronic (by users who have access to a computer or other electronic devices and a network connection such as the Internet). 
         [0005]    Potential survey participants or respondents are first identified from among a list or database of potential participants utilizing criteria established by the company or entity requesting the survey. Such criteria includes demographic information such as sex, age, income level, geographic region, residential living conditions (whether one owns or rents their primary residence), and any other factors perceived important such as known hobbies, schools attended, stores frequented, prior products purchased and the like. 
         [0006]    Once potential survey participants have been identified, however, there is typically some form of enticement offered to the potential participants to encourage them to take part in a survey. The enticement is typically in the form of a payment, rebate, discount or other similar cash substitute. Because potential participants receive such an enticement, however, many participants attempt to take a survey multiple times in order to receive multiple enticements. Not only is this more costly for the entity ordering the survey but also survey results can be skewed by the same person taking the survey multiple times. Users may attempt to do this by using different computers, different log in names, and the like in an attempt to circumvent the limitation that a survey should be taken only once by every user. 
         [0007]    Accordingly, what is needed is a system and method for eliminating or to at least to minimize the ability of the same user to take the same survey multiple times. 
     
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         [0008]    These and other features and advantages of the present invention will be better understood by reading the following detailed description, taken together with the drawings wherein: 
           [0009]      FIG. 1  is it like diagram of an exemplary system with and on which may be implemented the present invention; and 
           [0010]      FIGS. 2 &amp; 3  are flow charts illustrating the actions taken by the system and method of the present invention in determining whether of not a respondent has already taken a given survey and whether or not they should be allowed to do so. 
       
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS 
       [0011]    The present invention relates to a technique and appropriate system  101   FIG. 11  for preventing multiple respondents from taking the same online survey more than once using different identities on different computers within or across channels. A respondent in this context is any online (internet) user  12  that is willing to participate in taking an online survey. 
         [0012]    A channel  14  in this context is defined as a source of traffic on the internet that brings a respondent to a survey. A channel can be, but is not limited to, an email invitation to a respondent that is a member of a panel (panelist), an advertisement on a web site that performs an html redirect, an integrated web site publisher that performs an html redirect, a panelist web site that presents survey opportunities, third party respondent providers that send respondents, etc. 
         [0013]    An identity in this context is defined by the account that the respondent is using to take the survey under. A respondent may attempt to take surveys under multiple email accounts, different panel accounts, different publisher accounts, or different web accounts. 
         [0014]    The technique described herein is and may be applied to all survey start landing pages used within, or as a result of, a channel  14 . The detection technique described herein is executed whenever the landing page of the survey is loaded (http page load request), which occurs anytime a respondent attempts to take a survey. In addition, all registration systems utilize the technique through the use of a hidden image source containing a respondent unique identifier  16  (respondent GUID) that triggers the detection technique whenever a respondent registers with or otherwise enters the registration system. 
         [0015]    Detection Technique 
         [0016]    The detection technique of the present invention is triggered, as mentioned above, whenever a respondent responds to a survey opportunity (referred to as the Survey Start event) typically by clicking on the invitation of channel  14  through the user&#39;s computer browser  18 . The Survey Start event causes an HTTP request  20  from the respondent&#39;s browser  18  to be made to the Survey Management system  22  to decide whether or not to present the survey to the respondent. The HTTP header of the request  20  from the respondent&#39;s browser  18  is checked for the existence of a previously issued Global Identifier cookie  29 . The Global Identifier cookie  29  is a web cookie  28  (also known as an HTTP cookie and/or Flash Cookie, as both cookie types are used as part of the prevention technique of the present invention) as is known in the art, that is used to store an encrypted globally unique identifier (GUID)  24  that uniquely identifies the respondent from all other respondents independent of the account or machine that they are using to attempt to take the survey from. 
         [0017]    A globally unique identifier or GUID is a special type of identifier used in software applications in order to provide a reference number which is unique in any context (hence, “globally”), for example, in defining the internal reference for a type of access point in a software application, or for creating unique keys in a database. While each generated GUID is not guaranteed to be unique, the total number of unique keys (2 128  or 3.4×10 38 ) is so large that the probability of the same number being generated twice is infinitesimally small. The Survey Management system  22  is responsible for issuing the Global Unique Identifier cookies each time a respondent attempts to take a survey. Each time a respondent attempts to take a survey, the Survey Management system  22  also records the Global Unique Identifier (GUID)  24  along with the Survey ID  26  and Account ID  16  so that the Survey Management System  22  knows whether the respondent has taken the survey already regardless of what account or machine they attempt to take the survey under. 
         [0018]    If the respondent&#39;s browser  18  is not configured to accept cookies, than the respondent is not allowed to take the survey. If the browser  18  does accept cookies  28 , then the Survey Management system  22 , typically computer software being executed on correspondingly appropriate computer hardware, performs the following detailed logic or activities described in relation to method  100  shown and described in  FIGS. 2 and 3  as follows:
       1) If the Global Identifier cookie  29  of the respondent exists on the respondent&#39;s computer system, act  110 , then the global unique identifier  24  stored inside the cookie  29  is retrieved and decrypted,  120 . If the respondent already has a global unique identifier  24  associated with them in the Survey Management system  22 , path  142  from act  140 , then one of two conditions can result:
           i. If they don&#39;t have a global unique identifier  24  associated to them in the Survey Management system  22  under the account identifier  16  they are presently trying to take this survey with, path  144 , then the global identifier  24  from the cookie  29  is associated with the account identifier  16  and stored in the Survey Management system  22 , act  146 . If this respondent hasn&#39;t taken the particular survey  26  already under this account  16  or global unique identifier  24 , path  148 , then they are allowed to take the survey at this point. If the respondent already has taken the survey, under this account  16  or global unique identifier  24 , path  150 , they are not allowed to do so at this point.   ii. If they do have a global unique identifier  24  associated to them in the Survey Management system  22 , path  142 , then the present invention checks to see if it matches the decrypted global unique identifier  24  in the cookie  29 , act  152 . 2 cases can arise at this point:
               a. If there is a match, path  154 , no identification generation action is taken. This means that the respondent has been previously identified under this account on this machine and that they are not attempting to take the survey from a new account or machine. If this respondent hasn&#39;t already taken the survey associated with the survey ID  26  under this account ID  16  or global unique identifier  24 ,  156 , then they are allowed to take the survey at this point,  158 .   b. If there is a mismatch (no match), path  160 , then the respondent&#39;s global unique identifier  24  from the Survey Management system  22  is taken as the master and rewritten into the cookie  29  after encrypting,  162 . All the respondent accounts and records that are associated with the global unique identifier  24  from the cookie in the Survey Management system  22  are changed to be associated with the global unique identifier from the respondent&#39;s record. The global identifier  24  from the cookie is also marked to have been ‘merged’ with the respondent&#39;s global identifier in the Survey Management system  22 , so that if the respondent attempts any Survey Starts from different machines containing a different cookie&#39;s global unique identifier, the survey management system  22  can change it to the respondent&#39;s global identifier, act  164 . Having done this, the system now has captured that a respondent using a different account or different machine is attempting to take a survey. If this respondent hasn&#39;t taken the particular survey already under this account or global identifier, act  166 , then they are allowed to take the survey at this point,  168 , or prevented from taking the survey,  170 , if they have already done so.   
               
           2) If no cookie is detected in the HTTP header, path  172 ,  FIG. 2 , then the respondent&#39;s record for this account ID  16  in the Survey Management system  22  is checked to determine if a global unique identifier  24  was previously issued to the respondent based on the account ID  16  entered, act  174 ,  FIG. 3 . A cookie may not exist for this account ID  16  for several reasons: (1) it has not been issued yet because this is a first time respondent; (2) the respondent has deleted the global unique identifier containing cookie from his or her computer system; or (3) the respondent is using a different machine. Regardless, 2 cases can arise that are accounted for: i. If no global identifier has been previously issued, path  176 , a new one is created, act  178  and then associated to the respondent in the Survey Management system database  22  for this account ID  16 , act  180 . The global unique identifier  24  is then encrypted or encoded, act  182 , and set in the Global Identifier cookie  29 , act  184  and sent on the HTTP response  30  back to the respondent&#39;s browser  18 , act  186 . The browser  18  then stores this cookie locally  28  to the respondent&#39;s machine  12 . As a result, all future requests to the survey system from this machine  12  will contain this cookie  29  and GUID  24  in the HTTP header of the request. If this respondent hasn&#39;t taken the particular survey  26  already under this account  16 , act  188 , then they are allowed to take the survey at this point,  190 .
           ii. If the global identifier has been issued to the respondent, path  192 , then the identifier is then encrypted and set as the Global Unique Identifier cookie  29  on the HTTP response  30  back to the respondent&#39;s browser  18 ,  194 . The browser  18  then stores this cookie locally  28  to the respondent&#39;s machine  12 . As a result, all future requests to the survey system will contain this cookie  29  and GUID  24  in the HTTP header of the request. If this respondent hasn&#39;t taken the survey already under this account or global identifier, act  196 , then they are allowed to take the survey at this point,  198 .   
               
 
         [0026]    Modifications and substitutions by one of ordinary skill in the art are considered to be within the scope of the present invention, which is not to be limited except by the allowed claims and their legal equivalents.