Patent ID: 7552090

Claim:
A method of billing, by a third party, for access by a consumer to information made available by a vendor over a computer network, with the billing based on how long the consumer elects to access the information, the method comprising the steps of: a) when a consumer visits a vendor network address and decides to purchase access to information made available over the computer network by the vendor, having the consumer exercise a third-party link that will connect the consumer to the third party; b) having the third party provide to the consumer an exercisable start-session link for starting access to the information; and c) having the third party both begin timing access and redirect the consumer to the information if the consumer exercises the start-session link, wherein the third party passes to the vendor a consumer authentication code and consumer address by providing the consumer authentication code and consumer address as a parameter of the start-session link; wherein the third-party link and the start-session link are links on respective pages for presentation to the consumer by a browser hosted by equipment operated by the consumer.