Patent ID: 7822638

Claim:
An information providing system for providing information responding to a retrieval request from a terminal, characterized in comprising: a database having information, which an information provider provides, and a bid amount of money of said information stored correspondingly; a selecting means for responding to the retrieval request from the terminal, selecting m pieces of information, which become candidates for n pieces of information being presented to the terminal, from said database; a displaying order deciding means for: calculating a sum of bid amounts of money of m pieces of information, calculating a ratio of each of m pieces of information over said sum of bid amounts of money of m pieces of information, and deciding information of which a displaying order is a first rank based upon a probability proportional to magnitude of said ratio of the bid amount of money of each of m pieces of information; continuously calculating a sum of bid amounts of money of (m−1) pieces of information except the bid amount of money of the information of which the displaying order is a first rank, calculating a ratio of the bid amount of money of each of (m−1) pieces of information over said sum of bid amounts of money of (m−1) pieces of information, and deciding information of which the displaying order is a second rank based upon a probability proportional to magnitude of said ratio of the bid amount of money of each of (m−1) pieces of information; said computation is performed until information of which the displaying order is an (n−1)-th rank is decided; and calculating a sum of bid amounts of money of (m−n+1) pieces of information except the bid amount of money of the information of which the displaying order has been decided, calculating a ratio of the bid amount of money of each of (m−n+1) pieces over said sum of bid amounts of money of (m−n+1) pieces information, deciding information of which the displaying order is an n-th rank based upon a probability proportional to magnitude of said ratio of the bid amount of money of each of (m−n+1) pieces of information, and deciding the displaying order of information ranging from a first rank up to an n-th rank; and a means for transmitting information to the terminal so that information is displayed in said decided displaying order.