Patent Issued for Privacy scout (USPTO 11436364): Allstate Insurance Company

2022 SEP 28 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- Allstate Insurance Company (Northbrook, Illinois, United States) has been issued patent number 11436364, according to news reporting originating out of Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx editors.

The patent’s inventors are De Guia, Nicolette (Chicago, IL, US), Parkinson, John (Wheaton, IL, US), Striebich, Margaret K. (Chicago, IL, US).

This patent was filed on December 21, 2018 and was published online on September 6, 2022.

From the background information supplied by the inventors, news correspondents obtained the following quote: “Consumers commonly use the World Wide Web for locating and purchasing products and services. A consumer may use a web browser to visit a vendor’s website for this purpose. While the website may make available a privacy policy disclosing the corporate online personal data practices of the vendor, the consumer may not easily locate the privacy policy. In addition, the vendor’s privacy policy may be a lengthy document, and may be difficult to read on a small display screen, such as that of a mobile device. Furthermore, the privacy policy may be written in legal terms that the consumer may find difficult to fully understand. Although consumers may care about the privacy policy of a vendor, due to the difficulties discussed above, only the most motivated consumers may seek out and understand a vendor’s privacy policy. This results in consumers interacting with vendors, without knowledge of the privacy policy of those vendors.

“As consumers continue to make purchases in online environments, there will be an ever-present need to improve consumer awareness of the privacy policies of the vendors with which they interact, and to help consumers find vendors whose privacy policies meet the consumers’ privacy preferences.”

Supplementing the background information on this patent, NewsRx reporters also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “In light of the foregoing background, the following presents a simplified summary of the present disclosure in order to provide a basic understanding of some aspects of the invention. This summary is not an extensive overview of the invention. It is not intended to identify key or critical elements of the invention or to delineate the scope of the invention. The following summary merely presents some concepts of the invention in a simplified form as a prelude to the more detailed description provided below.

“Aspects of the disclosure address one or more of the issues mentioned above by disclosing methods, computer readable storage media, software, systems, and apparatuses to compare a consumer’s privacy preference with a privacy policy of a vendor and, in some embodiments, to recommend alternative vendors having privacy policies more closely matching the consumer’s privacy preferences. The recommended alternative vendors may be output for display to the consumer along with indications of various qualities of the vendors’ privacy policies, and indications of how, or if, those qualities conform to, or lack conformance with, the consumer’s privacy preferences. The described cyber-privacy system may help a consumer avoid interacting with vendors having privacy policies that don’t match the consumer’s preferences, and may help the consumer find other vendors whose privacy policies more closely match their privacy preferences.

“In some aspects, the system may include at least one processor and a memory unit storing computer-executable instructions. The system may be configured to, in operation, store information about privacy policies of a number of vendors and/or websites. The system may also be configured to, in operation, compare privacy preferences of a consumer (also referred to herein as a user) with the privacy policy of a vendor identified in an online request, from the consumer, for a product or service. The system may be configured to, in operation, determine whether the privacy policy of the identified vendor meets the privacy preferences of the consumer. Based on a determination that the privacy policy is not compatible with the consumer’s privacy preferences, the system may identify alternative vendors who provide similar products or services. The system may, in operation, respond to the consumer to indicate the alternative vendors and may also provide indications related to the privacy policies of the alternative vendors. Alternatively, based on a determination that the privacy policy is compatible with the consumer’s privacy preferences, the system may send the request to the vendor, for example, without responding back to the consumer.

“Of course, the methods and systems of the above-referenced embodiments may also include other additional elements, steps, computer-executable instructions, or computer-readable data structures. In this regard, other embodiments are disclosed and claimed herein as well. The details of these and other embodiments of the present invention are set forth in the accompanying drawings and the description below. Other features and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the description, drawings, and claims.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. An apparatus, comprising: a processor; a memory unit storing computer-executable instructions, when executed by the processor, cause the apparatus to: receive a content request identifying an entity and content provided by the entity; compare a privacy preference of a user associated with the content request and a privacy policy of the entity; and based on a determination that the privacy policy is not compatible with the privacy preference, determine one or more alternate entities for providing the content and send a response comprising, for at least one of the one or more alternate entities, an indication of a relative compatibility of a corresponding privacy policy with the privacy preference, wherein the indication of the relative compatibility comprises an indication associated with each of a plurality of privacy categories that include a data collected category, a data sharing category, an opt in/out category, and a data deletion category.

“2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the content request comprises a Uniform Resource Locator (URL), and wherein the entity comprises a website identified by the URL.

“3. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the computer-executable instructions, when executed by the processor, further cause the apparatus to: after sending the response indicating the one or more alternate entities for providing the content, receive a second request comprising a request for content provided by an alternate entity of the one or more alternate entities; and send the second request to the alternate entity.

“4. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the computer-executable instructions, when executed by the processor, cause the apparatus to determine the one or more alternate entities for providing the content, by causing the apparatus to: retrieve, from storage, indications of the one or more alternate entities, wherein the storage comprises an association between the entity and the one or more alternate entities.

“5. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the computer-executable instructions, when executed by the processor, further cause the apparatus to: based on a determination that the privacy policy is compatible with the privacy preference, send the content request to the entity.

“6. A method comprising: receiving a content request identifying an entity and content provided by the entity; comparing a privacy preference of a user associated with the content request and a privacy policy of the entity; and based on a determination that the privacy policy is not compatible with the privacy preference, determining one or more alternate entities for providing the content and sending a response comprising, for at least one of the one or more alternate entities, an indication of a relative compatibility of a corresponding privacy policy with the privacy preference, wherein the indication of the relative compatibility comprises an indication associated with each of a plurality of privacy categories that include a data collected category, a data sharing category, an opt in/out category, and a data deletion category.

“7. The method of claim 6, wherein the content request comprises a Uniform Resource Locator (URL), and wherein the entity comprises a website identified by the URL.

“8. The method of claim 6, further comprising: after sending the response indicating the one or more alternate entities for providing the content, receiving a second request comprising a request for content provided by an alternate entity of the one or more alternate entities; and sending the second request to the alternate entity.

“9. The method of claim 6, wherein the determining the one or more alternate entities for providing the content further comprises: retrieving, from storage, indications of the one or more alternate entities, wherein the storage comprises an association between the entity and the one or more alternate entities.

“10. The method of claim 6, further comprising: based on a determination that the privacy policy is compatible with the privacy preference, sending the content request to the entity.

“11. One or more non-transitory computer-readable media storing instructions that, when executed by a computing device, cause the computing device to: receive a content request identifying an entity and content provided by the entity; compare a privacy preference of a user associated with the content request and a privacy policy of the entity; and based on a determination that the privacy policy is not compatible with the privacy preference, determining one or more alternate entities for providing the content and sending a response comprising, for at least one of the one or more alternate entities, an indication of a relative compatibility of a corresponding privacy policy with the privacy preference, wherein the indication of the relative compatibility comprises an indication associated with each of a plurality of privacy categories that include a data collected category, a data sharing category, an opt in/out category, and a data deletion category.

“12. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 11, wherein the content request comprises a Uniform Resource Locator (URL), and wherein the entity comprises a website identified by the URL.

“13. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 11, storing further instructions that, when executed by the computing device, cause the computing device to: after sending the response indicating the one or more alternate entities for providing the content, receive a second request comprising a request for content provided by an alternate entity of the one or more alternate entities; and send the second request to the alternate entity.

“14. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 11, storing further instructions that, when executed by the computing device, cause the computing device to determine the one or more alternate entities for providing the content, by causing the computing device to: retrieve, from storage, indications of the one or more alternate entities, wherein the storage comprises an association between the entity and the one or more alternate entities.

“15. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 11, storing further instructions that, when executed by the computing device, cause the computing device to: based on a determination that the privacy policy is compatible with the privacy preference, send the content request to the entity.”

For the URL and additional information on this patent, see: De Guia, Nicolette. Privacy scout. U.S. Patent Number 11436364, filed December 21, 2018, and published online on September 6, 2022. Patent URL: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=11436364.PN.&OS=PN/11436364RS=PN/11436364

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