Patent ID: 8233593

Claim:
An agent to obtain information for a user from a Web site, and for use with a manager, the agent comprising: means for receiving a start request across an interface to establish a session; means, acting in response to receiving said start request, for sending across the interface an acknowledgement to establish the session; means, operating while the session is established, for entering a loop to receive an information request across the interface from a user for information, to obtain information from a Web site, to send the obtained information to the user, and to monitor for an end of session signal across the interface from the user; means for receiving across the interface from the user an end request to end the session; and means, acting in response to receiving said end request, for ending the session; and wherein the user and the manager are on a first side of the Internet; the agent is on a second side of the Internet, said second side being opposite said first side; the means for receiving the request for information includes means for receiving the request for information from the user via the manager; the means for sending the acknowledgement includes means to send said acknowledgement to the manager; and the means for sending the obtained information to the user includes means for sending the obtained information to the user via the manager.