Patent ID: 8086533

Claim:
A method, comprising: receiving a payment authorization request from a merchant; in response to the payment authorization request, generating a variable payment authorization score via an application program interface executed by a processor that interfaces with a billing system of the merchant, the generating including: determining, utilizing at least one of a plurality of heuristics, a probability of a payment being received based on information collected from a plurality of sources including a level of purchasing activity of a consumer and a previous purchasing or refund history of the consumer with respect to the merchant; and generating the variable payment authorization score, including a set of values, at least in part using the determined probability of the payment being received, the variable payment authorization score indicating the determined probability of the payment being received and including information associated with a probability of whether the particular merchant will, after payment, incur a positive net revenue for delivery of at least one of goods and services associated with a corresponding transaction; presenting to the application program interface a plurality of thresholds; receiving, at the application program interface from a subsystem of the merchant, a subset of the plurality of thresholds via a flag set for each of the thresholds in the subset of the plurality of thresholds, a value of each of the thresholds in the subset of the plurality of thresholds based on a type of an associated at least one of goods and services and for the associated at least one of goods and services being indicative of a probability of whether the merchant will, after payment, incur a positive net revenue for delivery of the associated at least one of goods and services, wherein the value is higher for digital content for which royalties are due than for digital content for which royalties are not due; determining by the application program interface whether the variable payment authorization score is acceptable based on one of the thresholds in the subset of the plurality of thresholds; and sending to the subsystem of the merchant a result of the determination in a form of a binary value.