Patent Document ID: 8429160
Application ID: 12903062
Patent Flag: 1

Claim One:
1. A system for assisting users with the selection of items on the Internet, comprising: one or more hardware processors; at least one web robot operable on the one or more hardware processors for crawling multiple websites to determine published userIDs and associated published preferences; a database accessible to the one or more hardware processors for storing the userIDs and associated preferences; software operable on the one or more hardware processors for performing an analysis and suggestion function; wherein the system initially assumes that a userID used by a first user on a first website represents the same user as the same userID used by a second user on a second website; wherein associated preferences stored for a particular userID include preferences for items available from a plurality of websites; wherein the system provides a particular third user with specific preference association information for a first item based on the expressed preferences of at least the first and second users across multiple websites relative to the first item and items that at least the first and second the other users have previously reviewed; and wherein to provide the preference association information to the third user, the third user need not be identified and need only indicate an interest in the first item; and wherein the operation of the system includes the steps of: recording preferences published on a first set of one or more websites for a specific first userID that correlate consistently with those of a first group of other users registered on the first set of one or more websites; recording preferences published on a second set of one or more websites for the specific first userID that correlate consistently with those of a second group of other users registered on the second set of one or more websites; determining that preferences of the first group of other users published on the first set of one or more websites do not correlate with those of the second group of other users published on the second set of one or more websites; and determining due to a lack of preference correlation between the first group of other users and the second group of other users that the person utilizing the first userID on the first set of one or more websites is a different person than the person utilizing the first userID on the second set of one or more websites and thereafter treating the first userID as two different userIDs respective of the first and second sets of websites.