Patent Publication Number: US-2010131359-A1

Title: System and method for securing invocations for serving advertisements and instrumentation in online advertising

Description:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION 
     The invention relates generally to computer systems, and more particularly to an improved system and method for securing invocations for serving advertisements and instrumentation in online advertising. 
     BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     Current advertisement serving platforms, such as AdSense and the Yahoo Publisher Network, allow publishers&#39; websites to display advertisements for participating advertisers. A publisher may register for an account and an application may create an advertisement tag to be placed on the web pages of the website owned by the publisher. The advertisement tag is typically a javascript, but may be any type of executable instructions that can be added to a web page. When a browser retrieves and loads the web page on a client device, the advertisement tag makes an invocation to an advertisement serving platform to get an advertisement. The advertiser is charged based on some pricing type such as cost per thousand of impressions (CPM), cost per click (CPC), cost per action (CPA) or other pricing type. The publisher is paid based on some revenue share or pricing type. 
     Unfortunately, a malicious user can steal the advertisement tag by viewing the source code in a browser and improperly use the advertisement tag to generate unintended requests to the advertisement serving platform. For instance, a malicious user can place the advertisement tag on a website with offensive content. Or a malicious user can place a conversion tag on an unintended website to send false conversion notifications to the advertisement serving platform. As a result, publishers are constantly monitored by advertisement serving platforms for potentially harmful content and also fake advertisement calls to advertisement servers. An advertisement serving platform may implement an automated mechanism to check the quality of a website to detect an offensive website. And advertisements may be blocked for offensive websites detected. This inhibits revenue generation by publishers and advertisement serving platforms. 
     What is needed is a way to securely serve online advertisements for publishers&#39; websites. Such a system and method should be able to identify that the advertisement tag is genuine and belongs to the registered publisher. 
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     The present invention provides a system and method for securing invocations for serving advertisements and instrumentation in online advertisements. An advertisement exchange server may provide services for publisher servers to add executable instructions to securely display online advertisements on a client device within allocated space of a web page of content published by the publisher servers. The advertisement exchange server may include an advertisement exchange application that may receive requests for executable instructions that may be included in an HTML document to retrieve and display advertisements with web page content. The advertisement exchange server may also include an executable code generator that provides the executable instructions, a checksum calculator that calculates a checksum from the binary values of the executable instructions, and a code verifier that validates the checksum of the advertisement executable instructions and the internet protocol (IP) address of the publisher server. 
     A publisher server may request and receive executable instructions that may retrieve and display advertisements with web page content. The executable instructions may also calculate a checksum to validate the executable instructions. The publisher server may add the executable instructions in a Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) document and store the document on the publisher server. A client device may then retrieve the document and execute the executable instructions. The executable instructions may calculate a checksum from the binary values of the executable instructions, extract the internet protocol address of the publisher server, and send a request with the checksum and internet protocol address of the publisher server to the advertisement exchange server to retrieve an advertisement to display with content of the document. The advertisement exchange server may receive the request from the client device and verify that the checksum is valid for the internet protocol address of the publisher server by comparing the checksum received with the checksum stored for the internet protocol address of the publisher server. The advertisement exchange server may then send the request to an advertiser server to serve an advertisement to the client device. In other embodiments, a client device may send the request with the checksum and the internet protocol address of the publisher server to the publisher server, and the publisher server may verify the checksum is valid and serve the advertisement to the client device. 
     An advertiser server may also use the present invention to track conversion of advertisements such as a purchase, registration, or other activity in response to display of an advertisement. An advertiser server may send a request to receive executable instructions that send notification of conversion from display of an advertisement on a computing device. The advertisement exchange server may receive the request, generate executable instructions that send notification of conversion from display of an advertisement, calculate a checksum from the binary values of the executable instructions, and send the executable instructions that send notification of conversion from display of an advertisement to the advertiser server. The advertiser server may add the executable instructions for sending a notification of conversion in an HTML document and store the document on the advertiser server. The advertisement exchange server may later receive a notification from a client device that retrieved the web page and verify that the checksum is valid for the internet protocol address of the advertiser server by comparing the checksum received with the checksum stored for the internet protocol address of the advertiser server. 
     The present invention may thus generally provide a mechanism to secure invocations of executable instructions including instrumentation in online advertising platforms. Various tracking and annotative functions on a client device including segmentation beaconing or engagement tracking for a web page or video advertising leveraging client-side instrumentation can use the mechanism of the present invention for increased security. The system and method may promote revenue generation by providing a more secure online advertising platform for publishers, advertisers, and advertisement exchange services. Other advantages will become apparent from the following detailed description when taken in conjunction with the drawings, in which: 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         FIG. 1  is a block diagram generally representing a computer system into which the present invention may be incorporated; 
         FIG. 2  is a block diagram generally representing an exemplary architecture of system components for securely serving online advertisements, in accordance with an aspect of the present invention; 
         FIG. 3  is a flowchart for generally representing the steps undertaken in one embodiment for adding executable instructions in a web page for securely serving online advertisements, in accordance with an aspect of the present invention; 
         FIG. 4  is a flowchart for generally representing the steps undertaken in one embodiment for generating executable instructions for a web page to request and receive an advertisement for display on a computing device for securely serving online advertisements, in accordance with an aspect of the present invention; 
         FIG. 5  is a flowchart for generally representing the steps undertaken in one embodiment for invoking the executable instructions for a web page to request and receive an advertisement for display on a computing device for securely serving online advertisements, in accordance with an aspect of the present invention; 
         FIG. 6  is a flowchart for generally representing the steps undertaken in one embodiment for verifying a request to receive an advertisement for display on a computing device is valid for securely serving online advertisements, in accordance with an aspect of the present invention; and 
         FIG. 7  is a flowchart for generally representing the steps undertaken in one embodiment for generating executable instructions for a web page to securely send notification of conversion from display of an advertisement on a computing device, in accordance with an aspect of the present invention. 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
     Exemplary Operating Environment 
       FIG. 1  illustrates suitable components in an exemplary embodiment of a general purpose computing system. The exemplary embodiment is only one example of suitable components and is not intended to suggest any limitation as to the scope of use or functionality of the invention. Neither should the configuration of components be interpreted as having any dependency or requirement relating to any one or combination of components illustrated in the exemplary embodiment of a computer system. The invention may be operational with numerous other general purpose or special purpose computing system environments or configurations. 
     The invention may be described in the general context of computer-executable instructions, such as program modules, being executed by a computer. Generally, program modules include routines, programs, objects, components, data structures, and so forth, which perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract data types. The invention may also be practiced in distributed computing environments where tasks are performed by remote processing devices that are linked through a communications network. In a distributed computing environment, program modules may be located in local and/or remote computer storage media including memory storage devices. 
     With reference to  FIG. 1 , an exemplary system for implementing the invention may include a general purpose computer system  100 . Components of the computer system  100  may include, but are not limited to, a CPU or central processing unit  102 , a system memory  104 , and a system bus  120  that couples various system components including the system memory  104  to the processing unit  102 . The system bus  120  may be any of several types of bus structures including a memory bus or memory controller, a peripheral bus, and a local bus using any of a variety of bus architectures. By way of example, and not limitation, such architectures include Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) bus, Micro Channel Architecture (MCA) bus, Enhanced ISA (EISA) bus, Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) local bus, and Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus also known as Mezzanine bus. 
     The computer system  100  may include a variety of computer-readable media. Computer-readable media can be any available media that can be accessed by the computer system  100  and includes both volatile and nonvolatile media. For example, computer-readable media may include volatile and nonvolatile computer storage media implemented in any method or technology for storage of information such as computer-readable instructions, data structures, program modules or other data. Computer storage media includes, but is not limited to, RAM, ROM, EEPROM, flash memory or other memory technology, CD-ROM, digital versatile disks (DVD) or other optical disk storage, magnetic cassettes, magnetic tape, magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices, or any other medium which can be used to store the desired information and which can accessed by the computer system  100 . Communication media may include computer-readable instructions, data structures, program modules or other data in a modulated data signal such as a carrier wave or other transport mechanism and includes any information delivery media. The term “modulated data signal” means a signal that has one or more of its characteristics set or changed in such a manner as to encode information in the signal. For instance, communication media includes wired media such as a wired network or direct-wired connection, and wireless media such as acoustic, RF, infrared and other wireless media. 
     The system memory  104  includes computer storage media in the form of volatile and/or nonvolatile memory such as read only memory (ROM)  106  and random access memory (RAM)  110 . A basic input/output system  108  (BIOS), containing the basic routines that help to transfer information between elements within computer system  100 , such as during start-up, is typically stored in ROM  106 . Additionally, RAM  110  may contain operating system  112 , application programs  114 , other executable code  116  and program data  118 . RAM  110  typically contains data and/or program modules that are immediately accessible to and/or presently being operated on by CPU  102 . 
     The computer system  100  may also include other removable/non-removable, volatile/nonvolatile computer storage media. By way of example only,  FIG. 1  illustrates a hard disk drive  122  that reads from or writes to non-removable, nonvolatile magnetic media, and storage device  134  that may be an optical disk drive or a magnetic disk drive that reads from or writes to a removable, a nonvolatile storage medium  144  such as an optical disk or magnetic disk. Other removable/non-removable, volatile/nonvolatile computer storage media that can be used in the exemplary computer system  100  include, but are not limited to, magnetic tape cassettes, flash memory cards, digital versatile disks, digital video tape, solid state RAM, solid state ROM, and the like. The hard disk drive  122  and the storage device  134  may be typically connected to the system bus  120  through an interface such as storage interface  124 . 
     The drives and their associated computer storage media, discussed above and illustrated in  FIG. 1 , provide storage of computer-readable instructions, executable code, data structures, program modules and other data for the computer system  100 . In  FIG. 1 , for example, hard disk drive  122  is illustrated as storing operating system  112 , application programs  114 , other executable code  116  and program data  118 . A user may enter commands and information into the computer system  100  through an input device  140  such as a keyboard and pointing device, commonly referred to as mouse, trackball or touch pad tablet, electronic digitizer, or a microphone. Other input devices may include a joystick, game pad, satellite dish, scanner, and so forth. These and other input devices are often connected to CPU  102  through an input interface  130  that is coupled to the system bus, but may be connected by other interface and bus structures, such as a parallel port, game port or a universal serial bus (USB). A display  138  or other type of video device may also be connected to the system bus  120  via an interface, such as a video interface  128 . In addition, an output device  142 , such as speakers or a printer, may be connected to the system bus  120  through an output interface  132  or the like computers. 
     The computer system  100  may operate in a networked environment using a network  136  to one or more remote computers, such as a remote computer  146 . The remote computer  146  may be a personal computer, a server, a router, a network PC, a peer device or other common network node, and typically includes many or all of the elements described above relative to the computer system  100 . The network  136  depicted in  FIG. 1  may include a local area network (LAN), a wide area network (WAN), or other type of network. Such networking environments are commonplace in offices, enterprise-wide computer networks, intranets and the Internet. In a networked environment, executable code and application programs may be stored in the remote computer. By way of example, and not limitation,  FIG. 1  illustrates remote executable code  148  as residing on remote computer  146 . It will be appreciated that the network connections shown are exemplary and other means of establishing a communications link between the computers may be used. Those skilled in the art will also appreciate that many of the components of the computer system  100  may be implemented within a system-on-a-chip architecture including memory, external interfaces and operating system. System-on-a-chip implementations are common for special purpose hand-held devices, such as mobile phones, digital music players, personal digital assistants and the like. 
     Securing Invocations for Serving Advertisements and Instrumentation in Online Advertising 
     The present invention is generally directed towards a system and method for securing invocations for serving advertisements and instrumentation in online advertising. In an embodiment, an advertisement exchange server may provide services for publisher servers to add executable instructions to securely display online advertisements on a client device within allocated space of a web page of content published by the publisher servers. The publisher server may add the executable instructions in an HTML document and store the document on the publisher server. A client device may retrieve a document with added executable instructions and execute the executable instructions. The executable instructions may calculate a checksum, extract the internet protocol address of the publisher server, and send a request with the checksum and internet protocol address of the publisher server to the advertisement exchange server to retrieve an advertisement to display with content of the document. The advertisement exchange server may verify that the checksum is valid for the internet protocol address of the publisher server and may send the request to an advertiser server to serve an advertisement to the client device. 
     As will be seen, the present invention may also be used to track conversion of advertisements such as a purchase, registration, or other activity in response to display of an advertisement. An advertisement exchange server may provide services for advertiser servers to add executable instructions that send notification of conversion from display of an advertisement on a computing device within web page content published by advertiser servers. Instrumentation such as tracking and annotative functions on a client device including segmentation beaconing or engagement tracking for a web page or video advertising leveraging client-side instrumentation can use the mechanism of the present invention for increased security. For instance, segmentation beaconing may use the present invention for annotating particular users for advertisement targeting or retargeting. The present invention may also be used by many websites that track engagement of users with rich media advertisements formats such as videos or flash applications. As will be understood, the various block diagrams, flow charts and scenarios described herein are only examples, and there are many other scenarios to which the present invention will apply. 
     Turning to  FIG. 2  of the drawings, there is shown a block diagram generally representing an exemplary architecture of system components for securely serving online advertisements. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the functionality implemented within the blocks illustrated in the diagram may be implemented as separate components or the functionality of several or all of the blocks may be implemented within a single component. For example, the functionality for the checksum calculator  228  may be included in the same component as the code verifier  230 . Or the functionality of the checksum calculator  228  may be implemented as a separate component from the code verifier  230  as shown. Moreover, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the functionality implemented within the blocks illustrated in the diagram may be executed on a single computer or distributed across a plurality of computers for execution. For example, the functionality distributed across the advertiser exchange server  222  and the advertiser server  232  may also be implemented on a single server. 
     In various embodiments, a client computer  202  may be operably coupled to one or more servers by a network  206 , such as publisher server  208 , advertisement exchange server  222 , advertiser server  232  and advertisement server  246 . The client computer  202  may be a computer such as computer system  100  of  FIG. 1 . The network  206  may be any type of network such as a local area network (LAN), a wide area network (WAN), or other type of network. A web browser  204  may execute on the client computer  202  and may include functionality for receiving a request to fetch a web page which may be input by a user, functionality for sending the request to a server to obtain the web page, and functionality for receiving and displaying the web page to a user. In general, the web browser  204  may be any type of interpreted or executable software code such as a kernel component, an application program, a script, a linked library, an object with methods, and so forth. The web page may be a Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) document or other type of document that may be used to convey multimedia content over the network that may include executable code. 
     The publisher server  208  may be any type of computer system or computing device such as computer system  100  of  FIG. 1 . In general, the publisher server  208  may serve web pages with multimedia content and may be operably coupled to storage  212  that includes one or more HTML documents  214  with advertisement executable code  216 , a checksum  218  and an Internet Protocol (IP) address  220 . The publisher server  208  may include a publisher application  210  that may request and receive advertisement executable code  216  that may be included in an HTML document  214  in order to display advertisements with web page content. The publisher application may also receive a checksum  218  calculated from the binary values of the executable code that may be used to determine if the executable code has changed. The IP address  220  may be populated with the IP address of the publisher server  208 . In an embodiment, a publisher server may receive a request to serve an advertisement and may use the checksum to verify that the executable code is valid. The publisher application  210  may be any type of executable software code such as a kernel component, an application program, a linked library, an object with methods, or other type of executable software code. 
     The advertisement exchange server  222  may be any type of computer system or computing device such as computer system  100  of  FIG. 1 . In general, the advertisement exchange server  222  may provide services for publisher servers  208  to securely display online advertisements within allocated space of a web page of content published by the publisher servers  208 . The advertisement exchange server  222  may include an advertisement exchange application  224  that may receive requests for advertisement executable code  216  and send advertisement executable code  216  that may be included in an HTML document  214  in order to display advertisements with web page content. The advertisement exchange server  222  may also include an executable code generator  226  that provides the advertisement executable code  216  that securely requests and receives advertisements for display within allocated space of a web page of content published by the publisher servers  208 . The executable code may be an interpreted script such as JavaScript, Perl or other executable code. The advertisement exchange server  222  may also include a checksum calculator  228  that calculates a checksum  218  from the binary values of the advertisement executable code  216  that may be used to determine if the executable code has changed. The advertisement exchange server  222  may also include a code verifier  230  that validates the checksum  218  of the advertisement executable code  216  and the IP address  220  of the publisher server  208 . The components of the advertisement exchange server  222  may be any type of executable software code such as a kernel component, an application program, a linked library, an object with methods, or other type of executable software code. 
     The advertiser server  232  may be any type of computer system or computing device such as computer system  100  of  FIG. 1 . In general, the advertiser server  232  may serve web pages with multimedia content and may be operably coupled to storage  236  that includes one or more HTML documents  238  with conversion executable code  240 , a checksum  242  and an IP address  244 . The advertiser server  232  may include an advertiser application  234  that may request and receive conversion executable code  240  that may be included in an HTML document  238  in order to report conversion of an advertisement impression for instance with sale of a product displayed on a web page. The advertiser application may also receive a checksum  242  calculated from the binary values of the executable code that may be used to determine if the executable code has changed. The IP address  244  may be populated with the IP address of the advertiser server  232 . The advertiser application  234  may be any type of executable software code such as a kernel component, an application program, a linked library, an object with methods, or other type of executable software code. 
     And the advertisement server  246  may be any type of computer system or computing device such as computer system  100  of  FIG. 1 . In general, the advertisement server  246  may serve advertisements  252  and may be operably coupled to storage  250  that includes one or more advertisements  252 . The advertisement server  246  may include an advertisement serving engine  248  that may receive requests to serve advertisements  252  and serve the advertisements  252  for display on a web page. The advertisement serving engine  248  may be any type of executable software code such as a kernel component, an application program, a linked library, an object with methods, or other type of executable software code. 
     Those skilled in the art will appreciate that many of the components of the computer system  100  and the system components for securely serving online advertisements illustrated in  FIG. 2  may be implemented in various embodiments within a system-on-a-chip architecture including memory, external interfaces, the operating system, the search engine and the social information ranking engine. System-on-a-chip implementations are common for special purpose hand-held devices, such as mobile phones, digital music players, personal digital assistants and the like. 
     An advertisement exchange platform may use the present invention to securely serve online advertisements for publishers and may also use the present invention to track conversion of advertisements such as a purchase, registration, or other activity in response to display of an advertisement. A publisher may allocate space for placement of advertisements in content published on their website for displaying the advertisements. A publisher may sign up for an account on an advertisement exchange platform and may categorize different sections of their website for targeting advertisements that belong to those categories. Alternatively, a web crawler may crawl the publisher&#39;s website and a text analyzing system may dynamically categorize different sections of the website. The publisher may receive executable code, such as an advertisement tag, that may be placed at a location of a web page on their web site. When a web browser operating on a client retrieves a web page from the publisher, the executable code may be invoked to request an advertisement be served to the client for display on the web page. In an embodiment, a request to serve an advertisement may be received by a publisher server. In various embodiments, a request to serve an advertisement may be received by an advertisement exchange server. An advertisement exchange platform may then tally impressions shown and user clicks to determine a revenue share for a publisher and the advertisement exchange service. 
     To securely serve online advertisements, a checksum may be generated when the advertisement tag is created. The checksum may be stored by the advertisement tag ID on the advertisement exchange server. When a client browser retrieves a web page with an advertisement tag from a publisher, the executable code is invoked. The executable code computes the checksum, extracts the publisher&#39;s IP address from the http header, extracts the advertisement tag ID, and sends a request to the advertisement exchange server to serve an advertisement. The request may include the checksum, the publisher&#39;s IP address, web site the section ID of the website, user information, and the advertisement tag ID. The checksum and publisher&#39;s IP address is verified by the advertisement exchange server and the advertisement exchange server sends a request to the advertisement server to serve an advertisement for the category of the website section. 
       FIG. 3  presents a flowchart for generally representing the steps undertaken in one embodiment for adding executable instructions in a web page for securely serving online advertisements. At step  302 , a request may be sent to receive executable instructions that request and receive an advertisement for display on a computing device. In an embodiment, a publisher server may send the request to an advertisement exchange server. At step  304 , executable instructions that request and receive an advertisement for display on a computing device may be received with executable instructions to calculate a checksum from the binary values of the executable code. For instance, an advertisement exchange server may send an advertisement tag that includes executable instructions that request and receive an advertisement and includes executable instructions that calculate a checksum from the binary values of the advertisement tag. In an embodiment, an encrypted checksum may also be sent to a publisher server that may receive a request to serve an advertisement to a browser operating on a client. The encrypted checksum may be stored and used to verify that the executable code is valid. 
     At step  306 , executable instructions that request and receive an advertisement for display on a computing device may be added in an HTML document with executable instructions that calculate a checksum from the binary values of the advertisement tag. And the HTML document with the executable instructions may be stored at step  308 . In an embodiment, a publisher server may add the executable instructions in an HTML document and store the document on the publisher server. 
       FIG. 4  presents a flowchart for generally representing the steps undertaken in one embodiment for generating executable instructions for a web page to request and receive an advertisement for display on a computing device for securely serving online advertisements. At step  402 , a request may be received to send executable instructions that request and receive an advertisement for display on a computing device. For example, an advertisement exchange server may receive a request from a publisher application operating on a publisher server to send an advertisement tag that may be invoked to retrieve an advertisement for display with content of a web page. 
     At step  404 , executable instructions that request and receive an advertisement for display on a computing device may be generated. And an encrypted checksum of the executable instructions may be generated at step  406 . In an embodiment, an advertisement exchange server may generate the executable instructions and may calculate the checksum from the binary values of the executable instructions. At step  408 , the executable instructions that request and receive an advertisement for display on a computing device may be sent to the requester with the encrypted checksum. And the encrypted checksum may be stored with the IP address of the requester at step  410 . 
       FIG. 5  presents a flowchart for generally representing the steps undertaken in one embodiment for invoking the executable instructions for a web page to request and receive an advertisement for display on a computing device for securely serving online advertisements. At step  502 , an HTML document may be received with executable instructions that request and receive an advertisement for display on a computing device. For example, a web browser operating on a client device may retrieve a web page with an advertisement tag from a publisher server. 
     At step  504 , the executable instructions that request and receive an advertisement for display on a computing device may be executed, and the checksum of the executable instructions that request and receive an advertisement for display on a computing device may be computed at step  506 . At step  508 , the IP address of the publisher may be extracted from the HTML document. In an embodiment, the IP address may be extracted from the http header of the HTML document. At step  510 , a request to receive an advertisement for display on a computing device may be sent with the checksum and extracted IP address of the publisher. In an embodiment, an advertisement exchange server may receive the request, verify that the checksum is valid for the internet protocol address of the publisher server, and may send the request to an advertiser server to serve an advertisement to the client device. In another embodiment, a publisher server may receive the request, verify the checksum is valid, and may serve and advertisement to the client device. And at step  512 , an advertisement for display on a computing device may be received by the client computing device. 
       FIG. 6  presents a flowchart for generally representing the steps undertaken in one embodiment for verifying a request to receive an advertisement for display on a computing device is valid for securely serving online advertisements. At step  602 , a request to receive an advertisement for display on a computing device may be received with an encrypted checksum and publisher IP address. At step  604 , the checksum may be verified to be valid for the publisher IP address. In an embodiment, an advertisement exchange server may store an advertisement tag ID mapped to the publisher IP address and an encrypted checksum. The checksum may be compared with the checksum received to verify that the checksum received is valid. At step  606 , an advertisement may be obtained to serve for display on the computing device. In an embodiment, an advertisement exchange server may send the request to an advertiser server to serve an advertisement to the client device. And the advertisement may be served for display on the computing device at step  608 . 
       FIG. 7  presents a flowchart for generally representing the steps undertaken in one embodiment for generating executable instructions for a web page to securely send notification of conversion from display of an advertisement on a computing device. At step  702 , a request may be received to send executable instructions that send notification of conversion from display of an advertisement on a computing device. For example, an advertisement exchange server may receive a request from an advertiser server to send a conversion tag for a web page of a shopping site. At step  704 , executable instructions that send notification of conversion from display of an advertisement on a computing device may be generated. An encrypted checksum of the executable instructions may then be generated at step  706 . In an embodiment, the checksum may be calculated from the binary values of the executable instructions. 
     At step  708 , the executable instructions that send notification of conversion from display of an advertisement on a computing device may be sent to the requester with the encrypted checksum. For instance, the advertisement exchange server may send the conversion tag with the executable instructions for calculating a checksum to the advertiser server. And at step  710 , the encrypted checksum may be stored with the IP address of the requester. 
     An advertisement server may then add the conversion tag in an HTML document to send notification of conversion from display of an advertisement on a computing device within web page content published by advertiser servers. When a client device may retrieve the web page and execute the instructions of the conversion tag, a notification may be sent to an advertisement exchange server that may verify that the checksum is valid for the internet protocol address of the advertiser server, and may record the conversion. 
     Thus the present invention may be used by an advertisement exchange platform to securely serve online advertisements for publishers and to track conversion of advertisements such as a purchase, registration, or other activity in response to display of an advertisement. Advantageously, the system and method may efficiently identify that an advertisement tag is unchanged and originates from a valid publisher. Thus, it may prevent unintended uses of advertisement tags such as false calls for advertisements or false notifications of conversions. Moreover, then mechanism of the present invention may be used to secure invocations of executable instructions including instrumentation in online advertising platforms. Various tracking and annotative functions on a client device including segmentation beaconing or engagement tracking for a web page or video advertising leveraging client-side instrumentation can use the mechanism of the present invention for increased security. Importantly, the system and method may promote revenue generation by providing a more secure advertisement exchange platform for publishers, advertisers, and advertisement exchange platforms. 
     As can be seen from the foregoing detailed description, the present invention provides an improved system and method for securely serving online advertisements. An advertisement exchange server may provide services for publisher servers to add executable instructions to a document that may calculate a checksum to validate the executable instructions. A client device may then retrieve the document, and the executable instructions may calculate a checksum from the binary values of the executable instructions, extract the internet protocol address of the publisher server, and send a request with the checksum and internet protocol address of the publisher server to receive the advertisement. The advertisement exchange server may receive the request from the client device and verify that the checksum is valid for the internet protocol address of the publisher server by comparing the checksum received with the checksum stored for the internet protocol address of the publisher server. The advertisement exchange server may then process the request. As a result, the system and method provide significant advantages and benefits needed in contemporary computing, and more particularly in online advertising applications. 
     While the invention is susceptible to various modifications and alternative constructions, certain illustrated embodiments thereof are shown in the drawings and have been described above in detail. It should be understood, however, that there is no intention to limit the invention to the specific forms disclosed, but on the contrary, the intention is to cover all modifications, alternative constructions, and equivalents falling within the spirit and scope of the invention.