Patent Document ID: 8055709
Application ID: 11923620
Patent Flag: 1

Claim One:
1. A method, comprising: receiving a data file containing records of a plurality of HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol) transactions of a plurality of users, each of the HTTP transactions including at least one URL (Uniform Resource Locator); converting the data file into a common file format; cleansing the data file in the common file format by applying a plurality of URL rules to remove session identifiers while accounting for the use of proxies, thereby producing a cleansed data file containing at least one modified URL; performing a panel selection process, comprising: conducting a periodic survey of a subset of Internet users to determine characteristics of an Internet community that includes the subset of Internet users, the characteristics including demographic characteristics; selecting a panel of users from the subset of Internet users, the panel of users having a targeted combination of the demographic characteristics; retaining the data file only when it contains a user identifier of a user in the panel of users; for each user in the panel of users, using a computer, performing a transformation process, comprising: selecting a user, removing from the data file those URLs that do not contain the user identifier of the selected user; determining which URLs in the data file belong to a session of the selected user in the panel of users; assigning a session identifier to the session; creating a plurality of session data files, each of which contain the selected user identifier, a time stamp, the URLs in the data file that belong to the session, and the session identifier; decomposing, using software modules and a cluster of machines that run parallel calculations to decompose, the URLs in each of the plurality of session data files so that the URLs in each of the plurality of session data files are decomposed URLs; and hashing the decomposed URLs so that the decomposed URLs are hashed, decomposed URLs; calculating a metric of user behavior based upon the hashed, decomposed URLs; merging the metric of user behavior into a file containing a plurality of metrics of user behavior; and transmitting to a remote machine the file containing the plurality of metrics of user behavior, wherein the file containing the plurality of metrics of user behavior enables a third party to track and analyze competitive product pricing.