Patent ID: 7124115

Claim:
A method for electronic advertising, comprising: providing a plurality of different aliases to represent a network address of an item offered by a merchant for sale on a page per fee basis at a predetermined price, all of the plurality of aliases representing the same network address; assigning respective aliases from among the plurality of different aliases to a plurality of advertisers for use by the advertisers in advertising the item and in receiving payment for the sale of the item, such that each respective alias from among the plurality of aliases is assigned by the merchant to specifically identify a respective one of the plurality of advertisers; posting an advertisement offering the item to a buyer for purchase via a network link represented in the advertisement by the respective alias, which conceals the network address from the buyer; receiving an invocation of the link from the buyer; responsive to the invocation, transmitting an order to the merchant for supply of the item to the buyer in exchange for payment of the price by the buyer, the order comprising a message including the respective alias; conveying the item, responsive to the order, from the merchant to the buyer; and receiving, responsively to the respective alias, a predefined portion of the price paid by the buyer in consideration for posting the advertisement.