International Business Machines Corporation

Nipun Batra

Vishal Singh Batra

Hemanth Puttaswamy

Srinivasa Ogireddy

Travis Woodruff

Steve Howard

A process for tracking a consumer's behavior based on his or her entries into a number of cybernetic device sources such as personal computers, automated goods and services dispensing kiosks, automated teller machines and cell phones does not depend exclusively upon the presence of cookies implanted into such devices by vendors or upon a consumer's having provided a positive identification form. The process uses a pairing algorithm to comb elements of information from the source device visitation records in search of one or more common characteristics that can be presumptively attributed to a single consumer. Characteristics such as source device identifiers, phone numbers, street addresses or email addresses are each weighted by a weighting factor that is used to identify the consumer and attribute the visitation record and its associated activity to that consumer at a calculated confidence level. The attributed information can analyzed to track that consumer's behavior.

Multi-source consumer behavior tracking system

A system is described for selecting web services accessible over a network (). The system comprises a pervasive device (), one or more servers () in communication with the network () and supporting at least one base web service () that provides an output in reply to a request from the pervasive device (). The system further comprises one or more servers () supporting at least one extended web service () operable to reduce a computational load of the pervasive device () in an interaction with the base web service (). An application () running on the pervasive device () evaluates attributes of a Quality of Service (QoS) model relating to interactions between pervasive device (), a base web service () and corresponding expanded web service (). The application () chooses whether or not to use the corresponding web service based on the evaluated attributes.

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Foster City, CA, United States of America

Nipun Batra