Patent Publication Number: US-2022239626-A1

Title: Internet connected household identification for online measurement &amp; dynamic content delivery

Description:
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS 
     This application is a continuation application and claims the benefit under 35 U.S.C. Section 120 of the following co-pending and commonly-assigned U.S. utility patent application(s), which is/are incorporated by reference herein: 
     U.S. patent application Ser. No. 17/008,215, filed on Aug. 31, 2020 (now U.S. Pat. No. 11,310,195 issued on Apr. 19, 2022), by Brian C. DeFrancesco, Timothy C. Vanderhook, and Christopher J. Vanderhook, entitled “INTERNET CONNECTED HOUSEHOLD IDENTIFICATION FOR ONLINE MEASUREMENT &amp; DYNAMIC CONTENT DELIVERY,” attorneys&#39; docket number 257.0026USC3, which application claims the benefit under 35 U.S.C. Section 120 of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/144,389, filed on May 2, 2016 (now U.S. Pat. No. 10,764,240 issued on Sep. 1, 2020), by Brian C. DeFrancesco, Timothy C. Vanderhook, and Christopher J. Vanderhook, entitled “INTERNET CONNECTED HOUSEHOLD IDENTIFICATION FOR ONLINE MEASUREMENT &amp; DYNAMIC CONTENT DELIVERY,” attorneys&#39; docket number 257.26-US-C2, which application claims the benefit under 35 U.S.C. Section 120 of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/895,587, filed on May 16, 2013 (now U.S. Pat. No. 9,331,921 issued on May 3, 2016), by Brian C. DeFrancesco, Timothy C. Vanderhook, and Christopher J. Vanderhook, entitled “INTERNET CONNECTED HOUSEHOLD IDENTIFICATION FOR ONLINE MEASUREMENT &amp; DYNAMIC CONTENT DELIVERY,” attorneys&#39; docket number 257.26-US-U1, which application claims the benefit under 35 U.S.C. Section 119(e) of U.S. provisional patent application Ser. No. 61/648,341, filed on May 17, 2012, by Brian C. DeFrancesco, Timothy C. Vanderhook, and Christopher Vanderhook, entitled “INTERNET CONNECTED HOUSEHOLD IDENTIFICATION FOR ONLINE MEASUREMENT &amp; DYNAMIC CONTENT DELIVERY,” attorneys&#39; docket number 257.26-US-P1, which is incorporated by reference herein. 
     This application is related to the following co-pending and commonly-assigned U.S. Utility patent application(s) which is incorporated by reference herein: 
     U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/223,676, filed on Mar. 24, 2014, now U.S. Pat. No. 8,996,727, issued on Mar. 31, 2015, by Brian C. DeFrancesco, Timothy C. Vanderhook, and Christopher J. Vanderhook, entitled 
     “INTERNET CONNECTED HOUSEHOLD IDENTIFICATION FOR ONLINE MEASUREMENT &amp; DYNAMIC CONTENT DELIVERY,” attorneys&#39; docket number 257.26-US-C1, which application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/895,587, filed on May 16, 2013, by Brian C. DeFrancesco, Timothy C. Vanderhook, and Christopher J. Vanderhook, entitled “INTERNET CONNECTED HOUSEHOLD IDENTIFICATION FOR ONLINE MEASUREMENT &amp; DYNAMIC CONTENT DELIVERY,” attorneys&#39; docket number 257.26-US-U1, which application claims the benefit under 35 U.S.C. Section 119(e) of U.S. provisional patent application Ser. No. 61/648,341, filed on May 17, 2012, by Brian C. DeFrancesco, Timothy C. Vanderhook, and Christopher Vanderhook, entitled “INTERNET CONNECTED HOUSEHOLD IDENTIFICATION FOR ONLINE MEASUREMENT &amp; DYNAMIC CONTENT DELIVERY,” attorneys&#39; docket number 257.26-US-P1, which is incorporated by reference herein. 
    
    
     BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     1. Field of the Invention 
     The present invention relates generally to identifying users on a network, and in particular, to a method, apparatus, and article of manufacture for identifying households for online measurement and dynamic content delivery. 
     2. Definitions/Description of the Related Art Household 
     The US Census Bureau defines a household as, “A household includes all the persons who occupy a housing unit. A housing unit is a house, an apartment, a mobile home, a group of rooms, or a single room that is occupied (or if vacant, is intended for occupancy) as separate living quarters. Separate living quarters are those in which the occupants live and eat separately from any other persons in the building and which have direct access from the outside of the building or through a common hall. The occupants may be a single family, one person living alone, two or more families living together, or any other group of related or unrelated persons who share living arrangements.” (See http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/meta/long HSD310200.htm). 
     Internet Connected Household (ICH) 
     An internet connected household is a household that uses the Internet at home. The US Census Bureau reports there are 81,939,000 households that use the Internet at home (internet connected households) in the United States. Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, October 2009. 
     Internet Service Provider (ISP) 
     An ISP is a company that supplies Internet connectivity to home and business customers. ISPs support one or more forms of Internet access, ranging from modem dial-up to DSL (digital subscriber line) and cable modem broadband service to dedicated T1/T3 lines to satellite or wireless access. 
     Regional Internet Registry 
     A regional Internet registry (RIR) is an organization that manages the allocation and registration of Internet number resources within a particular region of the world. Internet number resources include IP (internet protocol) addresses and autonomous system (AS) numbers. 
     The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) delegates Internet resources to the RIRs who, in turn, follow their regional policies to delegate resources to their customers, which include Internet service providers and end-user organizations. 
     Collectively, the RIRs participate in the Number Resource Organization (NRO), formed as a body to represent their collective interests, undertake joint activities, and coordinate their activities globally. The NRO has entered into an agreement with ICANN for the establishment of the Address Supporting Organisation (ASO), which undertakes coordination of global IP addressing policies within the ICANN framework. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regional_Internet_egistry). 
     Internet Protocol Address (IP) 
     An IP address is a logical address for a network adapter. Generally speaking, an IP address uniquely identifies computers on a TCP/IP network (transmission control protocol/Internet protocol network). 
     An IP address can be private—for use on a local area network (LAN)—or public—for use on the Internet or other wide area network (WAN). IP addresses can be determined statically (assigned to a computer by a system administrator) or dynamically (assigned by another device on the network on demand). 
     Two IP addressing standards are in use today. The IPv4 standard is most familiar to people and supported everywhere on the Internet, but the newer IPv6 standard is planned to replace it and is starting to be deployed. 
     IPv4 addresses consist of four bytes (32 bits). Each byte of an IP address is known as an octet. Octets can take any value between 0 and 255. Various conventions exist for the numbering and use of IP addresses. (See http://compnetworking.about.com/od/workingwithipaddresses/g/ip-addresses.htm). 
     Transmission Control Protocol /Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) 
     TCP/IP is the communication protocol for the Internet. A computer communication protocol is a description of the rules computers must follow to communicate with each other. TCP/IP defines how electronic devices (like computers) should be connected to the Internet, and how data should be transmitted between them. Each computer must have an IP address before it can connect to the Internet and each IP packet must have an address before it can be sent to another computer. (See http://www.w3schools.com/tcpip/tcpip_intro.asp). 
     Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) 
     The Hypertext Transfer Protocol provides a standard for Web browsers and servers to communicate. HTTP is an application layer network protocol built on top of TCP. HTTP clients (such as Web browsers) and servers communicate via HTTP request and response messages. (See http://compnetworking.about.com/od/networkprotocols/g/bldef_http.htm). 
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     Embodiments of the invention provide for an “Internet Connected Household Identification.” Such an identification is a system for identifying 
     “Households” for use in online media measurement including but not limited to website analytics, consumer interests and profiling, purchase activity, social activity and dynamic content delivery including but not limited to media (music, video, or any multimedia digital streaming format), advertisements, and text/graphic content (articles, links, images, animations, etc.). 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
       Referring now to the drawings in which like reference numbers represent corresponding parts throughout: 
         FIG. 1  is an exemplary hardware and software environment used to implement one or more embodiments of the invention; 
         FIG. 2  schematically illustrates a typical distributed computer system utilized in accordance with one or more embodiments of the invention; 
         FIG. 3  illustrates an additional implementation of a network and communication on such a network in accordance with one or more embodiments of the invention; 
         FIG. 4  illustrates publicly available “who-is” information that is utilized in accordance with one or more embodiments of the invention; and 
         FIG. 5  is a flow chart illustrating the logical flow for identifying an internet connected household in accordance with one or more embodiments of the invention. 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS 
     In the following description, reference is made to the accompanying drawings which form a part hereof, and which is shown, by way of illustration, several embodiments of the present invention. It is understood that other embodiments may be utilized and structural changes may be made without departing from the scope of the present invention. 
     Overview 
     Embodiments of the invention evaluate the IP address associated with a client computer request and determine whether the IP address belongs to an ISP that provides residential internet service. Further determinations are made regarding device activity (from the device associated with the IP address) (e.g., whether it exceeds a threshold level of activity expected from a household), and an IP assignment age (e.g., whether the age of the IP address exceeds a threshold age associated with households). Based on the determinations, a further determination can be made regarding whether the IP address/web request originates from an ICH. 
     Hardware Environment 
       FIG. 1  is an exemplary hardware and software environment  100  used to implement one or more embodiments of the invention. The hardware and software environment includes a computer  102  and may include peripherals. Computer  102  may be a user/client computer, server computer, or may be a database computer. The computer  102  comprises a general purpose hardware processor  104 A and/or a special purpose hardware processor  104 B (hereinafter alternatively collectively referred to as processor  104 ) and a memory  106 , such as random access memory (RAM). The computer  102  may be coupled to, and/or integrated with, other devices, including input/output (I/ 0 ) devices such as a keyboard  114 , a cursor control device  116  (e.g., a mouse, a pointing device, pen and tablet, touch screen, multi-touch device, etc.) and a printer  128 . In one or more embodiments, computer  102  may be coupled to, or may comprise, a portable or media viewing/listening device  132  (e.g., an MP3 player, iPod™, Nook™, portable digital video player, cellular device, personal digital assistant, etc.). In yet another embodiment, the computer  102  may comprise a multi-touch device, mobile phone, gaming system, internet enabled television, television set top box, or other internet enabled device executing on various platforms and operating systems. 
     In one embodiment, the computer  102  operates by the general purpose processor  104 A performing instructions defined by the computer program  110  under control of an operating system  108 . The computer program  110  and/or the operating system  108  may be stored in the memory  106  and may interface with the user and/or other devices to accept input and commands and, based on such input and commands and the instructions defined by the computer program  110  and operating system  108 , to provide output and results. 
     Output/results may be presented on the display  122  or provided to another device for presentation or further processing or action. In one embodiment, the display  122  comprises a liquid crystal display (LCD) having a plurality of separately addressable liquid crystals. Alternatively, the display  122  may comprise a light emitting diode (LED) display having clusters of red, green and blue diodes driven together to form full-color pixels. Each liquid crystal or pixel of the display  122  changes to an opaque or translucent state to form a part of the image on the display in response to the data or information generated by the processor  104  from the application of the instructions of the computer program  110  and/or operating system  108  to the input and commands. The image may be provided through a graphical user interface (GUI) module  118 A. Although the GUI module  118 A is depicted as a separate module, the instructions performing the GUI functions can be resident or distributed in the operating system  108 , the computer program  110 , or implemented with special purpose memory and processors. 
     In one or more embodiments, the display  122  is integrated with/into the computer  102  and comprises a multi-touch device having a touch sensing surface (e.g., track pod or touch screen) with the ability to recognize the presence of two or more points of contact with the surface. Examples of multi-touch devices include mobile devices (e.g., iPhone™, Nexus S™, Droid™devices, etc.), tablet computers (e.g., iPad™, HP Touchpad™), portable/handheld game/music/video player/console devices (e.g., iPod Touch™, MP3 players, Nintendo 3DS™, PlayStation Portable™etc.), touch tables, and walls (e.g., where an image is projected through acrylic and/or glass, and the image is then backlit with LEDs). 
     Some or all of the operations performed by the computer  102  according to the computer program  110  instructions may be implemented in a special purpose processor  104 B. In this embodiment, some or all of the computer program  110  instructions may be implemented via firmware instructions stored in a read only memory (ROM), a programmable read only memory (PROM), or flash memory within the special purpose processor  104 B or in memory  106 . The special purpose processor  104 B may also be hardwired through circuit design to perform some or all of the operations to implement the present invention. Further, the special purpose processor  104 B may be a hybrid processor, which includes dedicated circuitry for performing a subset of functions, and other circuits for performing more general functions such as responding to computer program instructions. In one embodiment, the special purpose processor is an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC). 
     The computer  102  may also implement a compiler  112  that allows an application program  110  written in a programming language such as COBOL, Pascal, C++, FORTRAN, or other language to be translated into processor  104  readable code. Alternatively, the compiler  112  may be an interpreter that executes instructions/source code directly, translates source code into an intermediate representation that is executed, or that executes stored precompiled code. Such source code may be written in a variety of programming languages such as Java™, Perl™, Basic™, etc. After completion, the application or computer program  110  accesses and manipulates data accepted from I/O devices and stored in the memory  106  of the computer  102  using the relationships and logic that were generated using the compiler  112 . 
     The computer  102  also optionally comprises an external communication device such as a modem, satellite link, Ethernet card, or other device for accepting input from, and providing output to, other computers  102 . 
     In one embodiment, instructions implementing the operating system  108 , the computer program  110 , and the compiler  112  are tangibly embodied in a non-transient computer-readable medium, e.g., data storage device  120 , which could include one or more fixed or removable data storage devices, such as a zip drive, floppy disc drive  124 , hard drive, CD-ROM drive, tape drive, etc. Further, the operating system  108  and the computer program  110  are comprised of computer program instructions which, when accessed, read and executed by the computer  102 , cause the computer  102  to perform the steps necessary to implement and/or use the present invention or to load the program of instructions into a memory, thus creating a special purpose data structure causing the computer to operate as a specially programmed computer executing the method steps described herein. Computer program  110  and/or operating instructions may also be tangibly embodied in memory  106  and/or data communications devices  130 , thereby making a computer program product or article of manufacture according to the invention. As such, the terms “article of manufacture,” “program storage device,” and “computer program product,” as used herein, are intended to encompass a computer program accessible from any computer readable device or media. 
     Of course, those skilled in the art will recognize that any combination of the above components, or any number of different components, peripherals, and other devices, may be used with the computer  102 . 
       FIG. 2  schematically illustrates a typical distributed computer system  200  using a network  202  to connect client computers  102  to server computers  206 . A typical combination of resources may include a network  202  comprising the Internet, LANs (local area networks), WANs (wide area networks), SNA (systems network architecture) networks, or the like, clients  102  that are personal computers or workstations, and servers  206  that are personal computers, workstations, minicomputers, or mainframes (as set forth in  FIG. 1 ). However, it may be noted that different networks such as a cellular network (e.g., GSM [global system for mobile communications] or otherwise), a satellite based network, or any other type of network may be used to connect clients  102  and servers  206  in accordance with embodiments of the invention. 
     A network  202  such as the Internet connects clients  102  to server computers  206 . Network  202  may utilize ethernet, coaxial cable, wireless communications, radio frequency (RF), etc. to connect and provide the communication between clients  102  and servers  206 . Clients  102  may execute a client application or web browser and communicate with server computers  206  executing web servers  210 . Such a web browser is typically a program such as MICROSOFT INTERNET EXPLORER™, MOZILLA FIREFOX™, OPERA™, APPLE SAFARI™, GOOGLE CHROME™, etc. Further, the software executing on clients  102  may be downloaded from server computer  206  to client computers  102  and installed as a plug-in or ACTIVEX™ control of a web browser. Accordingly, clients  102  may utilize ACTIVEX™ components/component object model (COM) or distributed COM (DCOM) components to provide a user interface on a display of client  102 . The web server  210  is typically a program such as MICROSOFT&#39;S INTERNET INFORMATION SERVER™. 
     Web server  210  may host an Active Server Page (ASP) or Internet Server Application Programming Interface (ISAPI) application  212 , which may be executing scripts. The scripts invoke objects that execute business logic (referred to as business objects). The business objects then manipulate data in database  216  through a database management system (DBMS)  214 . Alternatively, database  216  may be part of, or connected directly to, client  102  instead of communicating/obtaining the information from database  216  across network  202 . When a developer encapsulates the business functionality into objects, the system may be referred to as a component object model (COM) system. Accordingly, the scripts executing on web server  210  (and/or application  212 ) invoke COM objects that implement the business logic. Further, server  206  may utilize MICROSOFT&#39;S™ Transaction Server (MTS) to access required data stored in database  216  via an interface such as ADO (Active Data Objects), OLE DB (Object Linking and Embedding DataBase), or ODBC (Open DataBase Connectivity). 
     Generally, these components  200 - 216  all comprise logic and/or data that is embodied in/or retrievable from device, medium, signal, or carrier, e.g., a data storage device, a data communications device, a remote computer or device coupled to the computer via a network or via another data communications device, etc. Moreover, this logic and/or data, when read, executed, and/or interpreted, results in the steps necessary to implement and/or use the present invention being performed. 
     Although the terms “user computer”, “client computer”, and/or “server computer” are referred to herein, it is understood that such computers  102  and  206  may be interchangeable and may further include thin client devices with limited or full processing capabilities, portable devices such as cell phones, notebook computers, pocket computers, multi-touch devices, and/or any other devices with suitable processing, communication, and input/output capability. 
     Of course, those skilled in the art will recognize that any combination of the above components, or any number of different components, peripherals, and other devices, may be used with computers  102  and  206 . 
     Internet Connected Household Identification 
       FIG. 3  illustrates an additional implementation of a network and communication on such a network in accordance with one or more embodiments of the invention. As consumers/clients  102  use the Internet  202  to connect with web server(s)  210  via HTTP(s), a Public IP address  302  is attached to each HTTP request that generates as a result of such web browsing activity. 
     In a typical scenario, the devices  102  inside a household are on a Local Area Network (LAN)  304  that is private to the Household  306 . The IP address of each device  102  (IP addresses  303 ) within the household  306  is assigned by the router  308  (or modem  310 ). The modem  310  communicates with and receives Internet access from the ISP  312  on a wide area network (WAN)  314  that is usually public. The IP address  302  assigned to the home&#39;s modem  310  by the ISP  312  is public as it&#39;s what is used in communication with an outside web server  210 . 
     In some cases, multiple homes  306  will be pooled together and will share the same public IP  302 . These are typically in the cases of shared internet (apartment complex, college /university housing, etc). 
     Furthermore, the public IP addresses  302  that the ISP  312  assigns to the household&#39;s modem  310  may be static or dynamic. In either case, the main relevant measure is the “stickiness” or age of the IP assignment. For example, if an IP  302  is assigned dynamically, but only on the reset of a modem  310 , and the modem  310  is only reset once a year, the age of the IP address assignment for the Household  306  is one year. 
     When Household IPs assignment ages exceed a significant number of days, the Household public IP address  302  may serve as a unique identifier for all internet connected device  102  activity from within the Household  306  that are using the Household&#39;s ISP internet connection (all devices  102  will show the same public IP address  302  when they connect to web servers  210 ). 
     The system of Household identification (of embodiments of the invention) may use multiple criteria to evaluate each public IP address  302 , that an internet entity with web servers  210  receives, to determine if each IP address  302  belongs to a Household  306 . 
     Criteria 1: Public IP Belongs to an ISP that Provides Residential Internet Service 
     Every public IP address is registered with a RIR  316  (regional internet registry), and in general, most are a part of larger IP range blocks that belong to ISPs  312 . This data is publicly available and each organization (ISP)  312  can be classified as providing or not providing residential internet service based on publicly available information regarding the company and their offerings. 
     For example,  FIG. 4  illustrates the publicly available “who-is” information for the IP addresses 174.0.0.0/8 and 174.141.0.0/17 performed using AKIN (American Registry for Internet Numbers). The IP address 174.0.0.0/8 is part of a larger range block of IP addresses (i.e., 174.0.0.0-174.255.255.255) that is allocated to ARIN (an RIR). Using the information from ARIN, the IP address block ranges assigned to different organizations can be determined. As illustrated, the IP address 174.141.0.0/17 is part of a range block of IP addresses (i.e., 174.141.0.0-174.141.127.255) that are directly allocated to Windstream Nuvox, Inc. Windstream Nuvox is an ISP that provides residential internet service. 
     Accordingly, if an IP address  302  is registered with an RIR  316  (e.g., in a particular region of the world) and is part of an IP range block that belongs to an ISP that provides residential internet service, a determination can be made that the IP address  302  may be for an ICH. Similarly, if the ISP for that IP address does not provide residential service, a determination can be made that the IP address is not for an ICH. 
     Criteria 2: Device Activity from IP Does Not Exceed Threshold for ICH Usage Over a Period of Time 
     By monitoring the activity (devices, users, events) for each IP address over a defined period of time (example 30 days), the IP addresses that are used by non-Households (businesses and other organization) are filtered out by the level of activity observed from these IPs over the time period. 
     For example, if there are 200 devices and 100 users that connect from the same IP address, the IP address may be associated with significant activity and is therefore likely that of a business or other (non-Household) organization. 
     In other words, the activity for each IP address is monitored over a defined period of time. If significant activity is found (i.e., above a threshold level) from a single IP address, it can be determined that the IP address is not for an ICH. 
     In addition to filtering out business and organizations, such a criteria also provides a method to remove a small percentage of households  306  that have a short-lived IP assignment age. In this regard, if the IP is assigned frequently to households  306  in the ISP&#39;s customer base, the users and devices  102  from that IP accumulate and exceed the threshold to be considered a unique household identifier for any substantial period of time. 
     Criteria 3: The IP Assignment Age Must Be Greater Than 45 Days 
     In order to ensure an IP address is static enough that it can serve as an identifier for a reasonable period of time, the IP “stickiness” or assignment age is used. This is determined by observing the number of connecting IP addresses from the same ISP  312  over a defined period of time (e.g., 90 days). In other words, a determination is made if multiple different IP addresses are connected to each other and the combined IP assignment age of the “connected” IP addresses are utilized in the comparison to the threshold IP assignment age (i.e., 45 days). 
     A “connection” between two or more IP addresses belonging to the same ISP  312  is made when an identified user has generated activity from two IP addresses. For example, if a laptop user is indentified (e.g., by a cookie) as user 123456 and the laptop participates in web browsing from within an ICH with public IP 100.100.1.1, and then two days later the ICH&#39;s IP is changed to 200.200.1.1 by the ISP  312 , then the same user who generated activity behind 100.100.1.1 is found generating activity behind IP 200.200.1.1 which creates a connection between these two IP addresses. In other words, the same user is identified as belonging to the two IP addresses (e.g., using the cookie) and the activity on the combined connected IP addresses are utilized when determining if the IP assignment age is greater or less than 45 days. 
     Beyond a threshold of allowed connections (from people physically using a device inside another household  306 —e.g., visiting a friend), the connection rate and volume will filter short aged IP assignments from being identified as Internet connected households  306  for use in measurement and content distribution. 
     This provides an additional method to remove a small percentage of households  306  that have a small IP assignment age as these IPs are assigned frequently to households  306  in the ISP&#39;s customer base and the users and devices from that IP accumulate and exceed the threshold to be considered a unique household identifier for any substantial period of time. 
     EXAMPLES 
     The application of ICH identification for media includes, but is not limited to, measurement of distribution and dynamic content delivery, optimization and recommendation. 
     Measurement of Distribution/Exposure: 
     For online/web content owners or distribution/syndication partners, ICH identification provides a method to measure the total ICH&#39;s exposure to their content. 
     For advertiser, website owners, and analytics firms, ICH identification provides a standard measurement of ICH reach/exposure, advertising return on investment (ROI), and de-duplicated visitation statistics. 
     Content Delivery, Optimization, Recommendation: 
     ICH data can be collected to create data stores that include interests, activities (e.g., ads viewed), actions (e.g., visit to marketer&#39;s website). Such data stores can be leveraged to aid in dynamic content selection for content to be delivered to an application or webpage. In addition, it can serve to optimize the placement, order, and display of such content, and provide recommendations to household users for additional content engagement. 
     Logical Flow 
       FIG. 5  is a flow chart illustrating the logical flow for identifying an internet connected household in accordance with one or more embodiments of the invention. 
     At step  502 , an IP address is received at an Internet entity. For example, the IP address may be attached to an HTTP request received at a web server. 
     At step  504 , a determination is made regarding whether the IP address belongs to an ISP that provides residential internet service (e.g., referred to herein as the residential internet service status). In this regard, based on information from an RIR, the ISP assigned an IP range block (that includes the IP address) can be identified. Thereafter, based on publicly available information, the ISP can be classified as providing or not providing residential internet service. Accordingly, step  504  serves to filter out IP addresses (from further processing) that are from non-residential service based ISPs (e.g., those that solely provide business based services). In one or more embodiments, the publicly available information may be gathered and stored in a database (local or network based). Thus, the database may include ISPs that provide residential service, ISPs that do not provide residential service (and/or both). A simple comparison of the ISP to the list of ISPs in the database may be conducted to determine whether the IP address belongs to an ISP that provides residential internet service. 
     At step  506 , a determination is made regarding whether the device activity from the IP address exceeds a defined activity threshold (e.g., referred to herein as a device activity status). To make such a determination, activity from the IP address may be monitored over a period of time. Further, a “defined activity threshold” for the level of activity for ICHs may be determined. For example, the average level of activity for ICHs may be determined based on monitoring such activity over a period of time. Alternatively, any other method may be used to determine the activity threshold (e.g., a user specified level of activity, an ISP specified level of activity, etc.). Once the defined activity threshold has been determined (e.g., obtained from a database, computed, etc.), the level is compared to the level of activity from the IP address that has been monitored. If the level of activity exceeds the activity threshold, the system assumes that the IP address is not for an ICH, and filters out the IP address from further processing. However, if the level of activity does not exceed the activity threshold, then the IP address is not eliminated from further consideration/processing. 
     At step  508 , a determination is made regarding whether the IP assignment age for the IP address is greater than a defined threshold age (referred to herein as the IP assignment age status). In this regard, step  508  is used to ensure that the IP address is static enough that it can serve as an identifier for a reasonable period of time. In other words, to effectively use an IP address for further processing, the IP address must be static enough that it identifies a particular household. 
     Often times, an IP address is reassigned when a household restarts a modem or for a variety of other reasons. Accordingly, embodiments of the invention may observe a number of connecting IP addresses from the ISP over a defined period of time. As described above, two IP addresses belonging to the same ISP are “connected” when a user has generated activity from both of the two IP addresses (e.g., the user may be identified from a cookie, username, registration, etc.). A large increase in the IP&#39;s number of connecting IPs or users indicates the IP may have rotated and the assignment age is set back to zero (0) days making it invalid to serve as a unique identifier until its assignment age regains maturity. 
     Once the IP assignment age for the connecting IP addresses is computed, it can be compared to a threshold age (e.g., 45 days) to determine if the address is static enough to use for further processing. 
     At step  510 , it may be determined that the IP address corresponds to an ICH (e.g., per steps  502 - 506 ) with sufficient information (e.g. per step  508 ) to enable additional processing. Thus, based on the residential internet service status, device activity status, and IP assignment age status, a determination can be made regarding whether the IP address is associated with an ICH or not. 
     If the IP address is associated with/corresponds to an ICH, additional processing may be performed. Such additional processing may measure the ICH&#39;s exposure to content from a specific content owner. Alternatively, a data store may be created based on the device activity from the ICH. The data store may be used to store information regarding interests, activity, and actions from the device. Based on the data store, additional content (e.g., advertising or other content) may be dynamically selected and/or delivered to the device. 
     Conclusion 
     This concludes the description of the preferred embodiment of the invention. The following describes some alternative embodiments for accomplishing the present invention. For example, any type of computer, such as a mainframe, minicomputer, or personal computer, or computer configuration, such as a timesharing mainframe, local area network, or standalone personal computer, could be used with the present invention. 
     The foregoing description of the preferred embodiment of the invention has been presented for the purposes of illustration and description. It is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the invention to the precise form disclosed. Many modifications and variations are possible in light of the above teaching. It is intended that the scope of the invention be limited not by this detailed description, but rather by the claims appended hereto.