Patent ID: 7627526

Claim:
A method of conducting a transaction between a consumer, a merchant computer, and a billing computer connected together over a computer network, wherein the consumer purchases a product or service from the merchant computer by charging the value of the product or service to a consumer billing account, the method comprising: initiating the transaction for the product or service; the consumer authorizing the transaction by transmitting an authorization code to the billing computer; the billing computer determining whether to approve the transaction by considering the authorization code; and fulfilling the transaction if the billing computer approves the transaction; wherein the merchant computer does not receive information identifying the consumer billing account; and wherein initiating the transaction comprises: transmitting from the consumer to the merchant computer an order for the product or service; transmitting from the merchant computer to the billing computer information relating to the order; transmitting from the billing computer to the merchant computer a transaction identification code; and transmitting from the merchant computer to the consumer the transaction identification code.