Patent ID: 8285588

Claim:
A method of providing rewards to a user comprising: a. storing a user profile in memory of a portable computing device, the user profile comprising (i) prior purchase history data comprising details of a plurality of transactions that have been previously executed by the user, and (ii) user data which may only be accessed by a merchant terminal if allowed by the user; and b. a merchant terminal interacting with the portable computing device by: (i) accessing the purchase history data from the portable computing device; (ii) analyzing the purchase history data in accordance with a scoring algorithm to provide a score that is indicative of the relative value of the user; (iii) accessing the user data from the portable computing device if allowed by the user; and (iv) providing the user with a reward in accordance with the (A) user's score as indicated by the scoring algorithm and (B) the user data allowed by the user to be accessed by the merchant terminal, wherein the merchant terminal provides relatively greater rewards to users that allow relatively more user data to be accessed by the merchant terminal and relatively lesser rewards to users that allow relatively less data be accessed by the merchant terminal.