Patent ID: 8918800

Claim:
An apparatus for generating user preference information, comprising: a bidirectional communication section for receiving event information corresponding to a first user's operation of a first control device and a second user's operation of a second control device, the event information indicating (i) that the first user operated the first control device while an interval within which content preferred by the first user was presented to the first user and (ii) that the second user operated the second control device while an interval within which content preferred by the second user was presented to the second user; an extracting condition storage device for storing extracting conditions for extracting user preference information from the event information, wherein the extracting conditions are generated by one or more sponsor apparatuses, connected to the bidirectional communication network, and include a channel condition, a plurality of view event conditions, and a plurality of time interval conditions comprised of a start time and an end time; and a preference information extracting section for generating the user preference information by specifying a single user among all users with extracting conditions stored in the extracting conditions storage device and extracting a portion of the event information corresponding to that single user that matches the conditions specified by the extracting conditions, until all of the event information corresponding to that single user is extracted, and then again specifying a user among all users with extracting conditions stored in the extracting conditions storage device and extracting a portion of the event information corresponding to that specified user that matches the conditions specified by the extracting conditions, until all of the event information corresponding to that specified user is extracted, until the event information of all users has been extracted.