Patent ID: 8799081

Claim:
A method for bidding on placement of advertisements within media content that is deliverable within a computer networking environment, the method comprising: at a communication interface of a bid determination platform, receiving a first bid request having data; determining a plurality of bids for a plurality of advertisements via a computer processor of the bid determination platform based on the data associated with such first bid request; determining that the first bid request's data is missing one or more specific types of data for a penalty variable; decreasing via the computer processor at least a first portion of the bids that were determined for the first bid request, wherein an amount of each of the first portion of the bids for the first bid request is decreased by a penalty amount in response to the one or more specific types of data being determined to be missing from the first bid request's data; and for the first bid request, selecting an optimum set of one or more of the bids and transmitting the optimum bid, along with a reference to the associated advertisement, via the communication interface to a sender of the first bid request.