Patent ID: 8862667

Claim:
A method for providing network-based audience measurement, the method comprising: receiving, by a computer, data packets intercepted from between a client computer and a content server, wherein the data packets comprise requests to access content from the content server via a web server on the content server; identifying, by the computer, unique subscribers and content names based on the data packets; determining, by the computer, that a data packet of the data packets is machine generated, wherein determining that a data packet of the data packets is machine generated comprises determining that the data packet is directed to a virus update application; removing, by the computer, the data packet determined to be machine generated from the data packets, wherein the data packets remaining after the data packet determined to be machine generated is removed are user-generated data packets; and computing, by the computer, an audience measurement metric based on the unique subscribers, the content names, and the user-generated data packets, wherein the audience measurement metric comprises an amount of time spent by a user accessing the content via the client computer.