Patent ID: 8856314

Claim:
A method of determining a number of users on a subscriber account of an internet provider comprising: receiving a URL page request from a user of a user device operating an internet browser; determining a subscriber account associated with said URL page request by executing a first query on at least one database; determining a user associated with said URL page request; identifying a user fingerprint associated with the user, the user fingerprint comprising user identity information derived from header information transmitted from the user's internet browser to at least one accessed internet site, the header information comprising at least one of an identification of the user's operating system and version, the user's browser and version, and a suite of plug-ins available within the user's browser configuration; associating the user fingerprint with the user's identity and the subscriber account; executing a second query on said at least one database to determine a number of users associated with the subscriber account and to determine whether the number of associated users are above a threshold number of users; if the subscriber account has a number of associated users above the threshold number of users, then redirecting the URL page request received from the user to a notification page which indicates to the user that the number of users is above the threshold number of users, and wherein at least one user associated with said subscriber account is an authorized user; and determining if said URL page request is received from said authorized user, wherein a URL page to which the user is redirected is dependent on whether said user from which said URL page requested is received is the authorized user.