Patent ID: 7257546

Claim:
A method for correlating user data from a content provider and advertising view data from an advertising provider, wherein the user data of the content provider is present on a first autonomous system and the advertising view data of the advertising provider is present on a second autonomous system distinct from the first autonomous system, the first and second autonomous systems being autonomous in that each is normally secured against unconstrained access by another, the method comprising: receiving a first message from a user at an autonomous correlation system that is autonomous from the content provider and the advertising provider, the first message comprising an indication of a first object being presented to the user and a first user identifier associated with the user, the first object comprising content from the content provider; storing an association between the first user identifier and the user; receiving a second message from the user at the autonomous correlation system, the second message comprising an indication of a second object being presented to the user and a second user identifier associated with the user, the second object comprising an advertisement from the advertising provider; storing an association between the second user identifier and the user, wherein the first and second identifier are different; and generating a report based on the stored associations between the first and second user identifiers and the user, the report indicating that the content from the content provider from the first object and the advertisement from the advertising provider from the second object were presented to the user.