Patent Document ID: 9122760
Application ID: 13829303

Base Claim:
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 for items that are available on the web; 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 assumes until determined otherwise 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 third user with a suggested 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 users have previously reviewed; wherein the suggested first item provided to the third user is based on both positive and negative preferences of the first and second users; wherein a weighting profile is created for weighting rating values that represent positive and negative preferences; and wherein the weighting profile is deployed by the system with respect to combining preferences of the first and second users in suggesting the first item.

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Claim 2:
2. The system of claim 1 wherein the preferences of the first and second users comprise a plurality of distinct rating values, and wherein the weighting profile is uneven such that a weighting value applied to a positive rating is different from a weighting value applied to a negative rating.