WO2010049919A1

WO2010049919A1 - Targetted banner ads

Info

Publication number: WO2010049919A1
Application number: PCT/IB2009/055240
Authority: WO
Inventors: Manoj Mourya; Vinay Settepalli
Original assignee: France Telecom
Priority date: 2008-10-31
Filing date: 2009-10-30
Publication date: 2010-05-06

Abstract

The invention relates, in an operator network, to a method for pushing targeted banner ads in a webpage uploaded from a content provider by a user from said operator network, said webpage comprising scripting instructions for requesting a first banner ad from a banner ad server to be inserted in said webpage, the method comprising the acts of: - intercepting the request for the first banner ad resulting from the execution of the scripting instructions when the webpage is uploading by the subscriber, - selecting a targeted banner ad available from the banner ad server based on a user network profile, said user network profile resulting from the aggregation of data consumed by said user in the operator network, - transmitting a request for the targeted banner ad to the banner ad server in place of the intercepted request.

Description

TARGEIED BANNERADS

HELD OFTHEFIΦSENTINVENTION:

The present invention relates generally to the customization of advertisements and more specifically to the transmission of such ads over a c o mp ute r ne two rk.

BACKGROUND OFTHEPRESENTINVENTION:

Todaythere is an explosion of information ace essible throughthe Internet, bringing in more and more audience. If this c ommunication medium was at first promising for advertisers to reach this increasing audienc e, it becomes harder and harder for to day's advertising networks to e ffic ie ntly ta rg e t inte me t use rs.

One possible way to reach out to internet users is through web banners (b a nne r a d s in sho it) tha tcanbe seen asa spec ific fo rm o f a d ve rtising o n the World Wide Web. This form of online advertising consists in embedding an advertisement into a web page. It is intended to attract traffic to a website by linking to the website of the advertiser. The advertisement is constructed from an image (GIF, JPBG, PNG), JavaScript program or multimedia object employing technologies such as Silverlight, Java, Shockwave or Hash, often employing animation or sound to maximize presence. Images are usually in a high-aspect ratio shape (i.e. either wide and short, or tall and narrow) hence the reference to banners. These images are usually placed on web pages that have interesting content to users, such as e.g. a newspaper article, sports news, or an o p inio n p ie c e .

A web banner is displayed when a web page that references the banner is loaded into a web browser. An illustration of a known system for displaying a web bannerad is shown in FIG. IA. A c ommunication device 100 (forinstanc e a computer, laptop, smart phone and the likes) is equipped with a web browser to upload a webpage provided by a c ontent provider 120 (or content publisher), for instance www.c nn.c om. www. apple sto re. c om ... The content provider 120 generally d e fine s/ a llo c ates regions, spaces or boxes in its web pages that are reserved for the inse rtio n o f the banner ads. The banner ads can be found in banner ad inventories 111 that are available to banner ads providers or publishers BAP 110, also called ad publishers. Ad inventories 111 and BAP 110 can be seen as forming an ad server 115. The c ontent provider generally has agreements with a number of ad servers or banner ad providers for choosing what banner ads may be inserted in the allocated regions or boxes of their webpages.

Profiling techniques may be used to improve the efficiency of ads pushed to users. A targeted ad is an advertisement that is pushed to a party (user, household, device, ...) after a selection based on a profile of said party. F techniques are readily available to the man skilled in the art for pushing ads may through different means such as text messages, emails, ring tones, ... targeted ads on the internet are more difficult as a content provider has limited ace ess if any to data related to the visitors to its webpages.

An illustration of a known method forpushing (ie. inserting) to a first party a banner ad in an uploaded webpage is illustrated in FTG. IB. A first party using device 100 may be for instance a user or subscriber to an internet service provider (ISP), shown through the BP upper section in the FlG. IA, this first party having ac c ess to c ontent providers 120 through the BP. In a preliminary act 130, the first party request for c ontent, namely a webpage , from a c ontent provider 120. This may be achieved through an http request (Hypertext Transfer Pro toe ol) sent to the content provider 120 overthe BP network, which may transit over the internet if the content provider is outside the BP network. The BP network will also be referred to as the opera to rorc airier network as today BP offers more se rvic e s sue h as te Ie p ho ny, a c c e ss to the inte me t, the ir o wn c o nte nt p ro vid e rs such as media providers, TV, ...

In a further act 140, the content provider and/or the BAP may choose/select a banner ad for insertion in the webpage through scripting instructions related to that ad. These scripting instructions, or plug in, are provided by the banner ad provider 110 to the content provider 120. The scripting instructions related to the selected banner ad are instructions in a scripting language, which, when executed for instance in a web browser applic ation, will retrieve this selected ad from an ad inventory 111 of the banner ad provider 110. These scripting instructions may comprise generally:

- a selected ad to be inserted in the allocated region of the web page,

- an address forthe ad server 115, more precisely the bannerad inventory 111, from which the selected bannerad can be retrieved, and,

-the addressorthe name of the content provider, which selected the ad.

In a further act 150, the first party uploads the webpage sent by the content provider 120, which causes the browser application to execute the scripting instructions. As a consequence, using the information embedded in these instructions, one ormore http requests are sent to the ad server 115, i.e. the bannerad inventory 111, for fetching the bannerad chosen by the content provider 120 or BAP 110. The ad server 115 will reply to these http requests with the chosen banner add which is subsequently loaded and displayed in the webpage (act 160) in the allocated region. One may note that these ads generally appear in the alloc ate d regions with some latency, ie. after the data linked to the content provider 120 itself are loaded. This is due to the fact that the webpage needs to be uploaded in the browser application to cause the e xe c utio n o f the sc rip ting instruc tio ns.

When the first party clicks on the bannerad, he is directed to the website advertised in the bannerad as the bannerad generally c omp rises a re -direction link for redirecting the first party the advertised website. The advertised website may then record a visit from the initial webpage of the content provider. The content provider may itself keep a record of the clicking on the bannerad. Each click on a banner ad and the subsequent redirecting will generate re ve nue fo r the c o nte nt p ro vid e r.

Through the agreement with banner ad providers 110 (BAP), the content provider 120 knows which ads are available. The banner ads are generally identified through a tag o r id e ntifie r. The se ad tags are passed on parameters to the scripting instructions and are subsequently in the http requests to the BAP that can thus identity the chosen bannerad.

One problem today is that the banner ads are chosen randomly. When loading several times in a row a www.yahoo.com orwww.cnn.com page for instance, the bannerads willkeep on changing with randomly with no apparent logic. After a number of uploads of the same page, the same ads will appear again, which gives at most an indication of the BAPs the content provider has an agreement. No targeting of the chosen ad seems to come into play.

It would be interesting at this point if the banner ad could be chosen based on some rules so as to offertargeted bannerads, ie. bannerads that are of interest to the party uploading webpages from c ontent providers.

US2006085263 proposes a method and apparatus for targeting advertising content. A content provider generates ad banners. The content provider transmits an agent to a target computer. The agent obtains user information and transmits the user information to the content provider. A program running on the content provider organizes the user information and updates a userspecific database wherein all targeted bannerads are stored for a subsequent push to the target computer.

In this proposed solution, an agent needs to be downloaded to the targeted computer. Furthermore, a pre-storing (in the userspecific database) of targeted ads is needed, which will re quire a lot of data storage if the method is generalized to a lot of target computers.

Today there is still a need fora simple and straightforward method for providing targeted bannerads to users. There is a furtherneed fora solution that does not require large database forstorJng these adsahead of their actual push to the user.

SUMMARY OFTHEPRESENTMEIBOD AND SYSIEM:

It is an object of the present system to overcome disadvantages and/or make improvements in the prior a it.

Tb that extend, the present invention proposes a method, in an operator network, for pushing targeted banner ads in a webpage uploaded from a content provider by a user from said operator network, said webpage comprising scripting instructions for requesting a first banner ad from an ad server to be inserted in said webpage, the method comprising the acts of:

-intercepting the request forthe first b a nne r a d resulting from the execution of the scripting instruc tio ns whe n the webpage is uploading by the subscriber, -selecting a targeted banner ad available from the ad server based on a user network profile, said user network profile resulting from the aggregation of data c onsumed by said userin the opera tornetwork,

-transmitting a ie q ue st fo r the targeted banner ad to the ad serverin plac e ofthe intercepted request.

The present method allows substituting a request fora first banner ad with a request fora targeted banner ad. The substitution is done on the fly, after the e xe c utio n o f the sc rip ting instruc tio ns fo r the first b a nne rad generates one or more requests to the ad server.

The ta rg e ting o f the b a nne r ad is fa c ilita ting b y the p ro filing o f the subscriber through its usage/consumed data over the operator network. The usage data may be seen as the raw data resulting from a userwho is browsing the web, using multimedia, or even his phone experience as described later on. This information is essentially a collection of a subscriber's behavior without any analysis. Some processing and analysis of this usage data helps to make intelligent judgments about the subscriber's preferences. The network profile may be seen as the processed output from the analyzed usage data. Once analyzed, the usage data may help the operator of a network to provide personalized recommendations.

This c onsumed data available at the network level is used in the present method to generate a sub sc rib e r p ro file . This network level information c onta ins a 11 the re Ie va nt info rma tio n tha t c o mp Ie te Iy d e fine s a use r. Tha nks to the p re se nt method, there is no need for an agent on the user's device. No storage of banner ads is required beside a banner ad inventory from the ad server. The intervention is transparent to the user. The network profile may furthermore be short-lived (based on recent c onsumed data from the user) orspanning overa longer period of time.

In an additional embodiment of the present method, a banner ad is characterized by an ad identifier, the act of transmitting a request comprising the a c t o f sub stituting the first ad id e ntifie r b y the targeted bannerad identifier. h an additional embodiment of the present method, the data consumed by the user comprises keywords input from a search query sent to a search engine. The present invention also relates to a banner ad engine provided in an operator network for pushing targeted banner ads in a webpage uploaded from a content provider by a user from said operator network, said webpage comprising scripting instructions for requesting a first banner ad from an ad server to be inserted in said webpage, the banner ad engine being arranged to:

- inte re e p t the request forthe first banner ad resulting from the execution of the scripting instruc tio ns whe n the webpage is uploading by the subscriber,

- select a targeted banner ad available from the ad server based on a user network profile, said user network profile resulting from the aggregation of data consumed by said user in the operator network,

- transmit a re q ue st fo r the targeted banner ad to the ad server in place of the intercepted request.

In an additional embodiment of the present engine, a banner ad is characterized by an ad identifier, the present engine being arranged to substitute the first ad identifier by the targeted bannerad identifier.

In an additional embodiment of the present engine, the data consumed by the user comprises keywords input from a search query sent to a search engine.

The p re se nt inve ntio n also relates to a system forpushing targeted banner ads in a webpage uploaded from a content provider by a user from an operator network, said webpage comprising scripting instruc tio ns fo r re q ue sting a first banner ad from an ad serverto be inserted in said webpage, the system c o mp rising

- a behavioral pro file engine arranged to :

-aggregate the data consumed by the userinthe operatornetwork -generate a network user pro file forthe consumed data,

- a c ommunic ation devic e arranged to :

-upload from the content provider the webpage through an applic ation,

- e xe c ute d the sc rip ting instruc tio ns,

- a bannerad engine arranged to : -intercept the request for the first banner ad resulting from the execution of the scripting instruc tio ns whe n the webpage is uploading b y the sub sc rib e r,

- select a targeted banner ad available from the ad server based on a user network profile, said user network profile resulting from the aggregation of data c onsumed by said userin the opera tornetwork, -transmit a request for the targeted banner ad to the ad server in place ofthe intercepted request.

The present invention also relates to a computer readable carrier including c omputer pro gram instructions that cause a computerto implementa method for pushing targeted banner ads in a webpage uploaded from a content provider by a user from said operator network, said webpage comprising scripting instructions for requesting a first banner ad from an ad server to be inserted in said webpage, the readable c airier c omp rising:

- instruc tio ns fo r inte re e p ting the re q ue st fo r the first b a nne r a d re suiting fro m the execution ofthe scripting instructions when the webpage is uploading by the subscriber,

- instruc tio ns fo r se Ie c ting a targeted bannerad available from the ad server based on a user network profile, said user network profile resulting from the aggregation ofdata consumed by said userin the operator network,

- instruc tio ns for transmitting a request forthe targeted bannerad to the ad server in place ofthe intercepted request.

EKEFDESCRIPπON OFTHEDHVWINGS:

The present system and method are explained in further detail, and by way of example, with referenc e to the ace omp a nying drawings wherein:

FTG. IA shows an exemplary embodiment of a known system for providing banneradsina webpage,

FlG. IB shows an exemplary embodiment of a known method for providing banners ads in a webpage,

FlG. 2A shows a first exemplary embodiment of the present system for pushing targeted banner ads in a webpage, FTG.2B shows a first exemplary embodiment of the present method for pushing targeted banners ads in a web page,

FlG. 3 shows an illustration of a system to collect and aggregate subscribers usage data overan operatornetwork,

FlG.4A shows a second exemplary embodiment of the present system for pushing targeted banner ads in a web page, and;

FlG.4B shows a second exemplary embodiment of the present method for pushing targeted banners ads in a web page.

DEEULED DESCKPIION OFTHEFraFEKraD EMBODIMENTS:

The following are descriptions of exemplary embodiments that when taken in conjunction with the drawings will demonstrate the above noted features and advantages, and introduce furtherones.

In the following description, for purposes of explanation rather than limitation, specific details are set forth such as architecture, interfaces, techniques, etc ., for illustration. However, it willbe apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art that other embodiments that depart from these details would still be understood to be within the scope of the appended claims.

For example, the invention allows the provision of targeted banner ads taking into a subscriber network profile, and is described here after in its application to webpages. The man skilled in the art will notice that this is not the sole embodiment possible, and that the system and method according to the invention may be implemented to documents available on one or more databases, ace essible through a Io c al network. Other embodiments are readily available to the man skilled in the art.

Moreover, forthe purpose of clarity, detailed descriptions of well-known devices, systems, and methods are omitted so as not to obscure the description of the present system. In addition, it should be expressly understood that the drawings are included for illustrative purposes and do not represent the scope of the p re se nt syste m .

FlG. 2A shows an exemplary embodiment of the present system. An operator's network is illustrated on the upper part of FlG. 2A while a content provider and BAP are represented on the lower part. The content provider may be a distant node from the operator's network or part of it. The same can be said for the banner ad provider 210 associated with an ad inventory 211.

The operator's network may be seen as all the infrastructure in control of an operator, and that provides to subscribers to said operator communic ation services (voice, internet, TV, ...). The operator may be a telco (Orange, AT&T, Verizon, ...) ora cable operator (Comcast, One of more gateways (not shown in FTG.2A) are provided to allow the subscribers to access services and content hosted by distant nodes, like e.g. a content provider 220.

A subscriber, here after also referred to as a user, of the operator's network may access a web page from his communication device 200, for instanc e a personal computer, a laptop, a smart phone, a PDA (personal digital assistant) and the likes.

A web page or web page canbe seenasa resourc e of information that is suitable forthe World Wide Web and canbe accessed through a web browser ho ste d o n a c o mmunic a tio n d e vie e . This info rma tio n is usua Uy in HIML o r XHIML format, and may provide navigation to other web pages via hypertext links. Web pages may be retrieved from a loc al c omputer or from a remote web server. Web pages are requested by applications running on a device, and served from web servers, seen as content providers, using Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). Web pages may consist of files of static text stored within the web server's file system (static web pages), or the web server may c onstruct the (X)HTML for each web page when it is requested by an app Hc ation such as a browser applic ation (dynamic web pages). Client-side scripting can make web pages more responsive to use r inp ut o nc e in the client browser. The here after banner ads are generally implemented through these client side scripting instructions uploaded with the webpage. The instructions are then executed through the web browserto retrieve a bannerad from ad servers.

The webpage provided by a content provider 220 may c omprise one or more banner ads selected from a plurality of stored banner ads in an ad inventory 211. As explained in relation to FlGs. IA and IB, the content provider 220 is affiliated (has agreement) with one or more banner ad providers 210 which provide(s) the bannerad plugins taken from the ad inventory 211 for insertion into a webpage generated by content provider 220. The ad inventory 211 a nd the b a nne r a d pro vid er210 can be seen asfo miing a n a d se rve r 215 that allows the selection and the provision of banner ads to a c ontent provider o r p ub lishe r sue h a s c o nte nt p ro vid e r 220.

In the exemplary embodiment of FTG. 2A, a banner ad engine 205 is provided in the present system. This banner ad engine can monitor the http request to the ad server215 forretrieving a banner ad and resulting from the execution of the scripting instructions when a webpage is uploading by the subscriber. As seen before with the existing systems, these requests may comprise :

- a selected ad to be inserted in the allocated region of the webpage, -an address for the ad server 215, more precisely the ad inventory 211, from which the selected banner ad can be retrieved, and,

-the addressorthe name of the content provider, which selected the ad.

The banner ad engine 205 may be implemented through software and hosted on a node or server in the operator network. In the present system, the request to the ad inventory 211 may be routed through the banner ad engine 205 so that the may alter/ modify the request so as to change the banner initially inse rte d b y the c o nte nt p ro vid e r 220.

Tb that extend, a behavioral profiling module 206 is furthe r p ro vid e d to generate sub sc rib e rs p ro file s. The profiling module 206 and the targeted banner engine 205 may be part of the same server or hosted on operative Iy connected servers in the operator network. This profiling module 206, illustrated later on in FlG.3, may forinstanc e :

-collect data consumed by the subscriber when accessing the operator network,

- aggregate said data to built a network pro file forthe subscriber. In the present system, the bannerad engine 250 is adapted to : -selecting a targeted bannerad available from the ad inventory 211 of the bannerad provider210 based on the user network pro file,

-transmitting a request forthe targeted banner ad to the banner ad provider in place of the inteic epted request.

Fiiown profiling techniques, readily available to the man skilled in the art maybe used by the profile module 206 to aggregate the collected consumed data into a subscriber network pro file.

An e xe nip Ia ry e nib o d ime nt of the p ie se nt me tho d is illustia te d in FTG .2B. This embodiment may be carried out by the targeted banner ad engine 205. In a preliminary act 230, a subscriber to an operator network uses a device 200 to ace ess a web page provided by a c ontent provider 220. This may be achieved through an http request sent to the content provider 220 over the operator network. The request to the content providermay be generated through the use of a web browserapplic a tion running on the device 200.

In a further act 240, the content provider will choose /select a banner ad and insert in the webpage the scripting instructions - or plug in - related to that ad. The banner ads (scripting instructions) are generally provided by a BAP 210 and retrieved from the ad inventory 211 of said BAP 210. As mentioned in relation to FlGs. IA and IB, the selection of a banner add may be based on agreements between the content provider 220 and the BAP 210. The scripting instructions related to the selected banner ad are instructions in a scripting language, which, when executed for instance in a web browserapplic a tion, will retrieve this selected ad from the ad inventory 211 of the banner ad provider 210. Alternatively, BAP 210 maybe the network entity selecting the banner ad in place of the content provider 220 (as defined in the agreements between content pro viderand BAP).

These scripting instructions may comprise generally:

- a selected ad to be inserted in the a Uo c a ted region of the webpage. In an additional embodiment of the present method, the selected ad may be identified through an ad tag. The content provider, through an agreement with a BAP may have access to the available banner ads through their corresponding tag, which then willbe used by the BAPto identify and then push the selected ad to the subscriber up Io a ding the webpage,

- an address forthe ad inventory 211, from which the selected bannerad can be retrieved, and,

-the address orthe name of the c ontent pro vider220, which selected the ad. This last field may be used for tracking the clicks from the subscriber. This field is not nee essary as the tracking o f c lie ks fo r sta tistic s a nd revenue purpose is beyond the scope of the present method and system. Indeed this may be achieved as mentioned before through the redirection when a user clicks on the banner ad.

Optionally, the scripting instructions may comprise an indication of the BAP 210 which provided the banner ad plug in. Alternatively, the scripting instructions may comprise an indication of the ad server 215 which provides the the bannerad plug in through its two c o mp o ne nts, the ad inventory 211 and the BAP 210 respectively.

In a further act 250, the first party uploads the webpage sent by the content provider 220, which causes the browser application to execute the scripting instructions. As a consequence, using the information embedded in these instructions, one or mo re http requests are sent to the ad inventory 211for fetching/ retrieving the bannerad chosen by the c ontent provider220.

In an additional act 252 of the present method, the targeted banner ad engine 205 will intercept the request(s) resulting from the execution of the scripting instructions. One possible way of making the engine 205 aware of these requests may result from agreements between the operator of the network and the BAP 210 (or more generally the ad server 215). As the requests to the ad inventory 211 will comprise an indie ation of the ad inventory address, the engine 205 may filter the monitored requests for any recipient ad inventories listed in such agreements. When the BAP or ad server address is provided in the scripting instructions, the filtering of the bannerad engine 205 may be performed on this address. ha further act 254, the bannerad engine 205 will retrieve the subscriber's profile available from the profiling module 206. The network may readily identify the user uploading the page as a subscriberto the network, through e.g. the IP address where from the webpage is uploaded. The profile c an then be retrieved through matching the profiling module database with an identifier for the subscriber, either his IP address or another identifier associated to the subscriber IP address. The sub sc rib e r p ro file will help the bannerad engine 205 to select a targeted bannerad, ie. an ad that better matches the subscriber's interests, as d e fine d fro m his p ro filing .

As mentioned earlier, network opera tor/ BAP or network opera tor/ content provider agreements may exist to facilitate the implementation of the present method. These agreements may be used for instance to select the targeted banner ad based on the retrieved subscriber's profile. Thanks to the above mentioned agreements, the bannerad engine 205 may either

-be given ac cess to the ad inventory 211 to select the targeted banner a d to p ush to the sub sc rib e r,

- get regular updates from the BAPs the network has an agreement with to select "locally available" (i.e. in a network ac cessib Ie ad inventory wherein the available ads as well as these updates would be stored) targeted banner ads.

In a further act 256, the banner ad engine 205 will replace in the intercepted request the initial banner ad (as selected by the content provider 220) with the targeted banner ad as chosen from the subscriber's profile. In order to facilitate the choice of the targeted banner ad, banner ads may furthermore be indexed according to categories, keywords ... that can be matched with the retrieved subscriber's profile. The request fora bannerad then becomes a request for the targeted bannerad. The selection of the targeted bannerad maybe carried out by the bannerad engine 205. Alternatively the bannerad engine, one e interc epted the request to the ad inventory, may query an advertisement service node (not shown in FTG.2A) with the sub sc rib e r p ro file , the advertisement service node replying with a targeted bannerad to push to the sub sc rib e r, b a se d o n his p ro file .

In the additional exemplary embodiment wherein the banner ad are identified through ad tags, the banner ad engine 205 will carry out act 256 through changing in the intercepted request the ad tag forthe initially selected ad with the targeted bannerad tag.

In a further act 258, the banner ad engine 205 will then forward the request forthe targeted bannerad in place of the intercepted request. The ad inventory 211 will then reply upon re c eiving the request forthe targeted banner ad by providing to the requester (i.e. the device 200, more specifically the browser applic ation executing the scripting instructions) the targeted banner ad. This ad will be uploaded and displaying in the web page in a further act 260.

One possible approach to increase advertising e ffe c tive ne ss is to develop profiles of interest forusers by searching and analyzing their behavior. Typically a profile may be generated for a user, a subscriber household or a c ommunic ation device depending on the type of information which is monitored. FTG.3 is an illustration of an exemplary embodiment of the profiling module 206.

Through the operator's network, a subscriberLe. a user may enjoy services like telephony 301, internet ac cess 302 and media ace ess 303 (TV, video , music , ...). In the present system, the operator, through its infrastructure, has access to the usage data generated by subscribers through different paths described he re a fte r.

One possible path to aggregate the data consumed by a subscriber is the use of networks sniffers 340, provided to sniff, ie. record, the data consumed by the use r, whe the r the se data are content ac cessed by his mobile 301, their computer 302 or even through a media device 303. A sniffer (also known as a network analyzer or protoc ol analyzer or, for particular types of networks, an Ethernet sniffer or wireless sniffer) may be seen as a computer software or computer hard ware that can inteic eptand log data packet traffic passing over a digital network or part of a network. A network sniffer may also be seenasan application that passively records any packet traffic that runs through a given network point. The sniffer will pick up all the IP packets for every internet p ro to c o L

A sniffer may be located at the network gateway to the world wide web or within the network for network services. A sniffer may also for instance be located in a residential gateway to sniff the subscriber experienc e. An example of a sniffer may be the network analyzers provided by Packeteer® or more generally an intercepting proxy (to intercept all the traffic passing through it). Once a sniffer has recreated the HTTP and HTTPS traffic corresponding to the packet traffic, this sniffer 340 then creates a web log file. Thus, every "hit" to a webpage for instance, including each view of a HTML document, image or other object, may be logged. Every media consumed may also be recorded. The rec ords may c ontain (but not limited to) information about the URLofthe page, keywords, c ate gory of media, location, time of the date, date, ...

The output from the network sniffers 340 may be stored in offline operator's logs, respectively the mobile logs, the internet logs and the media Io gsfo reach sub sc rib e r.

Another usage data source is the CRM (Customer Resource Management) databases that are also maintained in the operator's network. The mobile, internet and media CRM databases are iespec tively dedic ated for telephony, internet and media. They are repositories of data rec oids relating to each customer or subscriber to the network. By way of illustration and not as a limitation, a data record within any of the CRM databases may comprise sub sc riptio n de tails sue has:

- fo r ho w Io ng ha s the c usto me r signe d up fo r se rvic e s,

- what servic es (data/voice),

-what grade of service (basic, medium, best class), i.e. his/her level of subscription,

- numb e r o f line s,

- use rs p ayme nt sc o re ,

- history of actions (orders, complaints, proposals),

- use r p re fe re nc e s, and;

- user personal data (e.g. name, age, address, fixed telephone, date of birth, profession, personal email address), also referred to the demographic data of a userhere after.

The whole usage data collected (the mobile, internet and media operator's logs respectively, as well as the mobile, internet and media CRM respectively) for each subscriber is processed by the profile engine 206 to determine for each subscriber a (subscriber) network profile. Known profiling techniques, readily available to the man skilled in the art may be used at this point by the profile engine 206 to aggregate the collected content data into subscriber network profiles. The profiling maybe approached for instance from a user point of view or from an ac cessed (duration, frequency or Io cation) point of view.

A sub sc rib e r p ro file may for instance be based ona short or a long period of time, depending on whether short or long trends ought to be taken into ace ount. For instanc e, for a short lived profile, only the recent experience (e.g. within the same day, week ...) is taken into account to generate the profile, which is c onsequently constantly updated. Depending on the type/c ate gory of content provider, different subscriber profiles may also be created forthe same subscriber, for instance a news profile, a sports profile ... so as to improve the se Ie c tio n o f the targeted banner ad. When a content provider belongs to one of these categories, the corresponding profile will be retrieved to select the targeted banner ad. The payments over the internet may also be emphasized as they can show that a subscriber is interested in a certain type of goods. Banner ads related to these goods or similar ones may be favored for such a sub sc rib e r.

As illustra te d here after in the exemplary embodiment of a home network, the profile of a user may be based on his recent search queries, using the keywords (clear text entries) to build a user profile forthe targeted banner ad se Ie c tio n.

One particular implementation of the present system is for residential gateways (RGs) and the present method is used to push relevant/targeted banner ad s on the plurality of devices c onnected to the RG in the same home.

FIg.4A is an illustration of a known residential gateway environment. A Residential Gate way (RG) 425 in Te Ic o orCable network (not shown in FlG.4A) is responsible for Triple play services (media, internet, phone). RG 425 has two types of interfac e WAN (Wide Area Network) and HAN (Home Area Network):

- WAN inte rfa c e connects to external phone wire (DSI), cable or fiber coming into home, notably to access the network, and the internet,

- HAN includes network inside the home (referred to as the home network here after) which may be Flhemet, Wi-fi, HPNA, Bluetooth etc. through which the plurality of the home de vie es 400 ace ess the network.

There are three types of Residential Gateways depending on hardware and software modules present inside. a. Hybrid mode RG: RG has both a router 426 and a bridge module 427 present inside. Some home devic es may c onnect to Routerand some to Bridge d e p e nd ing o n Ne two rk Arc hite c ture o f c a me r. b. Routed mode RG: RG has only router module 426 present inside. AH d e vie e s in ho me c o nne c t to Ro ute r. c. Bridge mode RG: RG has only bridge module 427 present inside. AH devices in home connect to Bridge. The IP address used to identify the subscriber, as described eaiiy on, may not be enough in the present RG environment as the IP address is allocated to the RG itself and not to the devices 400 of the home environment.

Indeed, from the WAN side, the RG IP address will be assigned by the operator (ie. carrier) through a DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) request. Carriers generally assign one IP address, c ailed public IP address, to a RG, whetherits mode is hybrid, routed orbridged.

From the HAN side, all devices 400 will share the public IP address assigned to RG 425. F individual IP addresses may be assigned to alldevices 400 in the near feature through IPv6, today, the public IP address is shared with all devices 400 in the same home network. As a direct consequence, individual devices are hidden from the external wo rid. In such an environment, RG 425 acts as a router for IP packets from and to the home network. Tb that extend, devices 400 may be identified by RG 425 through their MAC address as well as the port used by the application sending/receiving IP packets. Private IP addresses allocated by RG 425 may also be used. Requests from applications running on a device 400 may be characterized by a TO/FROM address as well as the port used by the application to send the request. Tb rout the IP packets, RG 425 will store in a table tying an application request to a device through its MAC, private IP address (if any) the port used by the application, and the recipient address (content provider for instance) of the request. When the content provider replies with a web page, RG 425 will identify the origin of the reply, and will use the table to rout the reply to the rightdevice 400.

A problem arises regarding targeted banner ads if the banner ad engine is hosted within the network. No individual profiling of users/devices from the same home network is possible as the banner ad engine may only see them as one IP pub Hc IP address. This is indeed true for hybrid and routed mode RGs as in a bridge mode RG, the home devices are visible to outside world.

The here after additional exemplary embodiment of the present method willbe illustrated with an either hybrid orrouted mode RG. When a home device 400 is hidden to the operator network, there will be no way to profile a sub sc rib e r. Ind e e d , the sub sc rib e r is in this p re se nt c a se a ho use ho Id , c o mp rising one or more residential consumers (or home users), who all share the same identifier, i.e. the public IP address. Carrier could profile consumers based on IP address of RG by sniffing data at DSIAM 416 (Digital Subscriber line Access Multiplexer), backhaul or at BRAS (broadband remote access server), but this profiling will be incorrect because the same IP address is used by all ho me users. Hence to achieve a relevant profiling, each device 400 has to be profiled separately. This profiling ought to be performed at the RG 425 level as any device 400 form the home network is invisible beyond RG 425. Forbridge mode RG, as the devices are visible to the outside of the home network, the present teaching maybe applied at the DSIAM level.

FTG. 4B is an illustration of an exemplary embodiment of the present system. A content provider 420 is accessible from a device 400 of the home network thro ugh RG 425, DSIAM 426, and the operator c airier network (opening on to the internet). A banner ad provider 410 has ac cess to a plurality of banner ads from an ad inventory 411. The banner ad engine 405 is provided as a module within the RG 425 for implementing the present method, and may be operatively coupled to banner ad engine 405. Indeed, such a module may e a sily inte re e p t the request forthe banner ads as RG 425 is the gateway to the carrier network for ace essing any content, including the content provider 420 and the BAP 410.

The bannerad engine 405 is arranged to c any out the present method as illustrated inrelationto FlG.2B The retrievalof the user's profile (act 254) may be carried out as follows to allow the distinction of the different devices 400 besides the unique public IP address.

Tb that effect, a behavioral pro filing module BPM 406 is furthe r p ro vid e d in RG 425. BPM 406 may have one ormore of the following capabilities: a. Learn MAC and IPaddress of all the device 400 present in HAN b. Detect the device type like Media Server, PC, Camera, Music player

c . Detect application type like media player, game player... d. Analyze the telephone callrecord e. Detect system's browsing pattern through sniffing of visited webpages. The Media Ace ess Control address (MAC address) or Flhe met Hardware

Address (FHA), hardware address, adapter address or physical address is a quasi-unique id e ntifie r a ssig ne d to most network adapters or network interfac e cards (NICs) by the manufacturer for identification.

BPM 406 and banner ad engine can be seen as logical egress interfac es of RG 425. All upstream data going through RG 425 is sniffed by BPM 406. A device profile maybe generated:

- through identifying each device using either its MAC address or a private address generated by RG 425, this for instance may be based taping into the table kept at RG 425 and mentioned earlier to sniff the device's consumed data,

- over a given period of time, depending on how the user is apprehended.

When a device identifier is used, the sniffing may be performed per device by BPM 406. Thus, BPM may generate a profile per device, which will be retrieved (act 254) by RG 425 when a request for a banner ad sent from this device is inte re e p te d . The id e ntifie r is use d in p Ia c e ofthe public IPaddress, RG 425 ensuring the proper routing by keeping track of which device sends which request.

Another approach is to generate through BPM 406 short lived profiles, ie. profiles that are linked to a given device 400 ofthe home network for a short time such as a connection time to the network. The profiling maybe carried out over a certain duration of data c onsumption, any older data being discarded and replaced by newly consumed data.

BPM at RG uses above c onsumed data to build a profile per devic e in the home network. This profile is built dynamically in real-time and is destroyed quickly as the device can show behavioral changes due to a change in the activity of one residential consumer during his current use, or a different residential c o nsumer started to use the same device. System behavior may also change ifa home user launches applications like lunes orgames on the device whic h will Ie a d to d iffe re nt p ro filing . h mo st o f the ho me s Ana Io g te Ie p ho ne line is connected to RG and if RG acts as SIP user agent, BPM may sniff c ailed party number and if it is c ommereial number then relevant ads are pushed on PC. For example, if someone dials for pizza then pizza ad is pushed to browser if at that instant user is browsing. The RG will again act as a router of the incoming targeted banner ad sent by the BAP in response to a request fora banner ad.

Another example is when a user is sending a query with keywords to a search agent, available on a content provider 420. BPM 406 may sniff the keywords as consumed data (the request to the search engine) going through RG 425. A short-lived profile may be based on these keywords. Any subsequent query to a c ontent provider (either the same search engine or another c ontent provider) may cause the device to upload a webpage with banner ads. The banner ad engine with then intercept the request(s) for banner ads and used this short-lived profile to select a targeted banner ad and insert it into the intercepted request.

For instance, a user types on a google searchpage the keywords "pizza + san Francisco + delivery". BPM may detect these direct keyword entries, and build a simple profile based on these entries. The bannerad engine 405 will later on, as the user upload a cnn.com webpage, push targeted bannerad fora Io c a 1 p izza re sta ura nt in Sa n Fra nc isc o tha t e nsure s p izza delivery over the who Ie city. h the here above description, reference was made to a bannerad server, or ad seiverin short, comprising two parts, the ad inve nto ry fo r sto ring banner ads, and the bannerad provider that provides the scripting instructions related to the banner ads to the content provider needing such banner ads. This illustration as two parts is in no way limiting as these two parts could be hosted by the same network entity, or being operatively linked to each other. The two part presentation helps to illustrate the different tasks performed by the ad seiver215 o f the p re se nt syste m.

Furthermore, reference was also made to the ad inventory 211, which comprises both the bannerad initially inserted by the content provider 220, and the selected bannerad, that will replace this initial banner ad. As mentioned before, the selected bannerad, based on the user profile, may be selected from another ad inventory, distinct from ad inventory 211. These distinct ad inventories may be seen as part of the same ad server 215, as they are both o p e ra tive Iy linke d to the same BAP 210.

Obviously, readily discernible modifications and variations of the present indexerare possible inlightofthe above teachings. I is the re fo re to be understood that within the scope of the appended claims, the present invention may be practiced otherwise than as specifically described herein. For example, while described in terms of hard ware /software components interactively cooperating, it is contemplated that the invention described herein may be practiced entirely in software. The software maybe embodied in a carrier such as magnetic oroptical disks, ora radio frequency or audio frequency carrier wave.

For instanc e, in order to ensure a p ro p e r p ro filing of a user, this user may register with a node that monitors all his browsing experienc e , an agent may be provided on his devic e to collect the data when the method is not performed at the operator's level . A user may also be identified through his network ID, the monitoring of his consumed data being carried out through sniffing data consumed by the party identified in the network with this network ID. The subsequent request for banner ads (from an initial webpage uploaded on a device) c ould be linked to the user thro ugh his network ID.

Furthermore, BPM and banner ad engine have been presented as separate logic al entities, they may nonetheless be part of the same entity in the network, like forinstance RG 425.

Thus, the foregoing discussion discloses and describes merely exemplary embodiments of the p re se nt inve ntio n. Aswillbe understood by those skilled in the art, the present invention may be embodied in other specific forms without departing from the spirit or essential characteristics thereof. Accordingly, the disclosure of the present invention is intended to be illustrative, but not limiting of the scope of the present invention, as we 11 as other claims. The disclosure, including any readily discernible variants of the teaching she re in, define, in part, the scope of the foregoing claim terminology such that no inventive subject matter is dedicated to the public.

The section headings included herein are intended to facilitate a review but are not intended to limit the scope of the present system. Accordingly, the specification and drawings are to be regarded in an illustrative mannerand are notintended to limit the scope ofthe appended claims.

In interpreting the appended claims, it should be understood that: a)the word "comprising" does not exclude the presence of otherelements oractsthan those listed in a given claim; b)the woid "a" or "an" preceding an element does not exclude the presence of a plurality of such elements; c ) any reference signs in the claims do no t limit the ir sc o p e ; d) several "means" may be represented by the same item or hardware or software implemented structure orfunction; e) any of the disclosed elements may be comprised of hardware portions (e.g., including discrete and integrated electronic circuitry), software portions (e.g., computer programming), and any combination thereof; f) hardware portions may be comprised of one or both of analog and digital portions; g) any of the disclosed devices or portions thereof may be combined togetherorseparated into further portions unless specifically stated otherwise; h)no specific sequence ofactsorstepsis intended to be required unless specifically indicated; and i) the term "plurality of an element includes two ormore of the claimed element, and does not imply any particular range of numberof elements; that is, a plurality of elements can be as few as two elements, and can include an immeasurable numberof elements.

Claims

CLAIMSWhat is claimed is:

1. In an operator network, a method tor pushing targeted banner ads in a webpage uploaded from a content provider by a user from said operator network, said webpage comprising scripting instructions for requesting a first banner ad from a banner ad server to be inserted in said webpage, the method comprising the acts of:

- intercepting the request for the first banner ad resulting from the execution of the scripting instructions when the webpage is uploading by the subscriber,

- selecting a targeted banner ad available from the banner ad server based on a user network profile, said user network profile resulting from the aggregation of data consumed by said user in the operator network,

- transmitting a request for the targeted banner ad to the banner ad server in place of the intercepted request.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein a banner ad is characterized by an ad identifier, wherein the act of transmitting a request comprises the act of substituting the first ad identifier by the targeted banner ad identifier.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the data consumed by the user comprises keywords input from a search query sent to a search engine.

4. In an operator network, a banner ad engine for pushing targeted banner ads in a webpage uploaded from a content provider by a user from said operator network, said webpage comprising scripting instructions for requesting a first banner ad from a banner ad server to be inserted in said webpage, the banner ad engine being arranged to:

- intercept the request for the first banner ad resulting from the execution of the scripting instructions when the webpage is uploading by the subscriber,

- select a targeted banner ad available from the banner ad server based on a user network profile, said user network profile resulting from the aggregation of data consumed by said user in the operator network, - transmit a request for the targeted banner ad to the banner ad server in place of the intercepted request.

5. The engine of claim 4, wherein a banner ad is characterized by an ad identifier, said engine being arranged to substitute the first ad identifier by the targeted banner ad identifier.

6. The engine of claim 4, wherein the data consumed by the user comprises keywords input from a search query sent to a search engine.

7. A system for pushing targeted banner ads in a webpage uploaded from a content provider by a user from an operator network, said webpage comprising scripting instructions for requesting a first banner ad from a banner ad server to be inserted in said webpage, the system comprising

- a behavioral profile engine arranged to:

- aggregate the data consumed by the user in the operator network

- generate a network user profile for the consumed data,

- a communication device arranged to:

- upload from the content provider the webpage through an application,

- executed the scripting instructions,

- a banner ad engine arranged to:

- select a targeted banner ad available from the banner ad server based on a user network profile, said user network profile resulting from the aggregation of data consumed by said user in the operator network,

- transmit a request for the targeted banner ad to the banner ad server in place of the intercepted request.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein a banner ad is characterized by an ad identifier, the banner ad engine being arranged to substitute the first ad identifier by the targeted banner ad identifier.

5 9. The system of claim 7, wherein the data consumed by the user comprises keywords input from a search query sent to a search engine.

10. A computer readable carrier including computer program instructions that cause a computer to implement a method for pushing targeted banner ads in a ) webpage uploaded from a content provider by a user from said operator network, said webpage comprising scripting instructions for requesting a first banner ad from a banner ad server to be inserted in said webpage, the readable carrier comprising:

- instructions for intercepting the request for the first banner ad resulting from 5 the execution of the scripting instructions when the webpage is uploading by the subscriber,

- instructions for selecting a targeted banner ad available from the banner ad server based on a user network profile, said user network profile resulting from the aggregation of data consumed by said user in the operator network,

) - instructions for transmitting a request for the targeted banner ad to the banner ad server in place of the intercepted request.