Patent ID: 7640187

Claim:
A method for initiating anonymous on-line transactions, the method comprising: displaying an anonymous shopping toolbar in a browser on a computer, the anonymous shopping toolbar associated with a credit card issuer and providing a user with an anonymous credit card option for the user to anonymously initiate an on-line transaction; communicating a request for an anonymous credit card to the credit card issuer over a network connection that links the computer to the credit card issuer, the request communicated in response to the user selecting the anonymous credit card option, wherein the credit card issuer: generates the anonymous credit card and links the anonymous credit card to the user's real credit card account in response to receiving the request for the anonymous credit card, the anonymous credit card having an anonymous transaction number that includes a credit card number and an expiration date based on a month and a year in which the on-line transaction occurs, issues a limit of one trillion unique anonymous transaction numbers per month, and uses one or more numbers from a first four numbers of the user's real credit card account in the anonymous transaction number in response to having issued the limit of one trillion unique anonymous transaction numbers in the month in which the on-line transaction occurs to create a new limit of an additional one trillion unique anonymous transaction numbers; receiving the anonymous credit card at the computer over the network connection that links the computer to the credit card issuer; and initiating the on-line transaction over the network connection using the anonymous credit card.