Patent ID: 7734504

Claim:
A method for transacting business between a user and a resource provider providing a product or service to the user and desiring traffic to a designated target over a wide area network, the method comprising: receiving, using a computer server, use information describing a measure of use by the user of one or more computer resources comprising one or more of computer hardware or software resources of the resource provider that operate on at least one computer associated with the resource provider; debiting an account associated with the user by a debit amount determined from the use information; determining a measure of network traffic indicating actual network traffic generated by the user to the designated target, wherein the measure of network traffic is based at least partly on a quantity of requests originating from the user that are characterized by being redirected to a designated target; determining a credit amount based on the measure of network traffic; and crediting the credit amount to the account associated with the user, wherein redirection of the network traffic is exchanged for at least a portion of the use of the one or more computer resources.