Patent ID: 7539736

Claim:
A method for determining whether a remote client connected to a computer network meets predetermined criteria, comprising: providing at least one fractional information query to a client adapted for prompting a user of the client to answer a fractional question requesting only partial information of identifying indicia, wherein the partial information is not sufficient to identify the user and omits a portion of the identifying indicia such that the complete identifying indicia corresponding to the user cannot be readily ascertained; generating at least one set of potential matches to the user of the client from a response to the at least one fractional question, using at least one database of identity information and accessing a plurality of independent external databases of identity information; determining whether all of the potential matches satisfy the predetermined criteria comprising a user age greater than a predetermined age threshold; searching an alternate one of the independent external databases, if a first one of the independent external databases does not provide a record matching the response to the at least one fractional information query; and signaling whether the user of the remote client satisfies all of the predetermined criteria as determined by the determining step.