Patent ID: 6983379

Claim:
A method for collecting transaction data generated by users accessing a network through an internet service provider without associating personally identifiable information with the transaction data, comprising: obtaining an identifier from an internet service provider representing one or more users of a computer network; creating an anonymized identifier using the obtained identifier at the internet service provider; collecting data being transmitted across the computer network from the internet service provider; collecting transaction data recorded by a merchant system on the network which is separate from the internet service provider, said collecting being done at the merchant system for transactions conducted between the merchant and one or more users of the computer network; creating one or more transaction codes using the collected transaction data at the merchant system; associating the anonymized identifier with the collected data and the one or more transaction codes; creating a transaction record including one or more transaction codes and an anonymized identifier, storing the transaction record in a database separate from the internet service provider and the merchant system.