Patent Issued for Unsubscribe automation (USPTO 11196693): Allstate Insurance Company

2021 DEC 29 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- A patent by the inventors Parkinson, John (Wheaton, IL, US), filed on March 20, 2019, was published online on December 7, 2021, according to news reporting originating from Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx correspondents.

Patent number 11196693 is assigned to Allstate Insurance Company (Northbrook, Illinois, United States).

The following quote was obtained by the news editors from the background information supplied by the inventors: “Protecting confidential information in today’s online environment is difficult due to the increased connectivity and the increased number of consumer accounts accessible via web enabled computing devices. Consumers today have a large number of online subscriptions and accounts and keeping track of all of them is difficult and time consuming. Many consumers have subscriptions and financial accounts that they have long forgotten about but those subscriptions and accounts may still be active and accessible online. It is important from a digital safety perspective that consumers be aware of all of their online accounts and be diligent in closing unused or no longer wanted subscriptions.

“For each of these unused or unwanted accounts or subscriptions, a consumer may continue to receive unwanted emails and/or other communications. However, for consumers, unsubscribing to unused or no longer needed accounts and subscriptions can be difficult.

“Website owners provide privacy policies that may contain opt-out provisions that detail how to unsubscribe to the subscription or account, but finding such information is difficult and time consuming. Unsubscribing details may also be found in email list services but such unsubscribing details may be confusing and burdensome for consumers to implement. Therefore, there is a need for a simpler and more efficient approach to unsubscribing for consumers.”

In addition to the background information obtained for this patent, NewsRx journalists 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 for use by a consumer in order to discover and remove unwanted mailing list traffic and digital communication based relationships associated with a consumer’s discovered accounts and subscriptions. In an embodiment, for each identified account or subscription the unsubscribe method may be determined and implemented for the consumer. Discovered accounts and subscriptions may be listed and displayed to the consumer along with recommendations and assistance for closing any discovered unused or unwanted accounts and subscriptions.

“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, determine the actual unsubscribe dialog required for each requested action and execute the requested action using the appropriate method. The system may also be configured to, in operation, handle exceptions, report results, and transmit confirmations that the requests were successfully completed. The system may be configured to, in operation, create log records of the transactions.

“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, which when executed by the processor, cause the apparatus to: determine, for a plurality of items of email correspondence, a likelihood that each item of email correspondence represents an account or subscription of a consumer, wherein the account or subscription is provided by a source of the item of email correspondence; based on the determined likelihood that each item of email correspondence represents an account or subscription of the consumer, generate a list of accounts and subscriptions associated with the consumer; determine for each account and subscription an unsubscribe action, wherein an unsubscribe action for at least one subscription is determined by analyzing a privacy policy on a webpage hosted by a source of the at least one subscription; generate a revised list of accounts and subscriptions including the determined unsubscribe action for each account and subscription; determine that at least one account or subscription, provided by a corresponding source, is stale by determining that a period of time since reception, from the corresponding source, of a most recent item of email correspondence associated with the at least one account or subscription exceeds a pre-determined threshold; and based on the at least one account or subscription being stale, recommend closing the at least one account or subscription.

“2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the unsubscribe action comprises a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) and at least one unsubscribe dialog parameter.

“3. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the at least one unsubscribe dialog parameter comprises an email address of the consumer.

“4. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the computer-executable instructions, when executed by the processor, further cause the apparatus to: receive an indication to unsubscribe to one or more accounts; retrieve an unsubscribe process for each of the one or more accounts from the revised list of accounts and subscriptions; and initiate the retrieved unsubscribe process for each of the one or more accounts.

“5. The apparatus of claim 4, wherein the computer-executable instructions, when executed by the processor, further cause the apparatus to: transmit a report to the consumer upon successful completion of the unsubscribe process for each of the one or more accounts; and generate a log record of an outcome of the unsubscribe process for each of the one or more accounts.

“6. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the computer-executable instructions, when executed by the processor, further cause the apparatus to: identify a source of a second account or subscription; and based on the identified source, recommend closing the second account or subscription.

“7. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the unsubscribe action for the at least one subscription comprises a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) and wherein the computer-executable instructions, when executed by the processor, cause the apparatus to: determine the URL, based on the analyzing the privacy policy.

“8. A method comprising: determining, for a plurality of items of email correspondence, a likelihood that each item of email correspondence represents an account or subscription of a consumer, wherein the account or subscription is provided by a source of the item of email correspondence; based on the determined likelihood that each item of email correspondence represents an account or subscription of the consumer, generating a list of accounts and subscriptions associated with the consumer; determining for each account and subscription an unsubscribe action, wherein an unsubscribe action for at least one subscription is determined by analyzing a privacy policy on a webpage hosted by a source of the at least one subscription; generating a revised list of accounts and subscriptions including the determined unsubscribe action for each account and subscription; determining that at least one account or subscription, provided by a corresponding source, is stale by determining that a period of time since reception, from the corresponding source, of a most recent item of email correspondence associated with the at least one account or subscription exceeds a pre-determined threshold; and based on the at least one account or subscription being stale, recommending closing the at least one account or subscription.

“9. The method of claim 8, wherein the unsubscribe action comprises a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) and at least one unsubscribe dialog parameter.

“10. The method of claim 9, wherein the at least one unsubscribe dialog parameter comprises an email address of the consumer.

“11. The method of claim 8, further comprising: receiving an indication to unsubscribe to one or more accounts; retrieving an unsubscribe process for each of the one or more accounts from the revised list of accounts and subscriptions; and initiating the retrieved unsubscribe process for each of the one or more accounts.

“12. The method of claim 11, further comprising: transmitting a report to the consumer upon successful completion of the unsubscribe process for each of the one or more accounts; and generating a log record of an outcome of the unsubscribe process for each of the one or more accounts.

“13. The method of claim 8, further comprising: identifying a source of a second account or subscription; and based on the identified source, recommend closing the second account or subscription.

“14. The method of claim 8, wherein the unsubscribe action for the at least one subscription comprises a Uniform Resource Locator (URL), the method further comprising: determining the URL based on the analyzing the privacy policy.

“15. One or more non-transitory computer-readable media storing instructions that, when executed by a computing device, cause the computing device to: determine, for a plurality of items of email correspondence, a likelihood that each item of email correspondence represents an account or subscription of a consumer, wherein the account or subscription is provided by a source of the item of email correspondence; based on the determined likelihood that each item of email correspondence represents an account or subscription of the consumer, generate a list of accounts and subscriptions associated with the consumer; determine for each account and subscription an unsubscribe action, wherein an unsubscribe action for at least one subscription is determined by analyzing a privacy policy on a webpage hosted by a source of the at least one subscription; generate a revised list of accounts and subscriptions including the determined unsubscribe action for each account and subscription; determine that at least one account or subscription, provided by a corresponding source, is stale by determining that a period of time since reception, from the corresponding source, of a most recent item of email correspondence associated with the at least one account or subscription exceeds a pre-determined threshold; and based on the at least one account or subscription being stale, recommend closing the at least one account or subscription.

“16. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 15, wherein the unsubscribe action comprises a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) and at least one unsubscribe dialog parameter.

“17. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 16, wherein the at least one unsubscribe dialog parameter comprises an email address of the consumer.

“18. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 15, storing further instructions that, when executed by the computing device, cause the computing device to: receive an indication to unsubscribe to one or more accounts; retrieve an unsubscribe process for each of the one or more accounts from the revised list of accounts and subscriptions; and initiate the retrieved unsubscribe process for each of the one or more accounts.

“19. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 18, storing further instructions that, when executed by the computing device, cause the computing device to transmit a report to the consumer upon successful completion of the unsubscribe process for each of the one or more accounts; and generate a log record of an outcome of the unsubscribe process for each of the one or more accounts.

“20. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 15, wherein the unsubscribe action for the at least one subscription comprises a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) and wherein the instructions, when executed by the computing device, cause the computing device to determine the URL, based on the analyzing the privacy policy.”

URL and more information on this patent, see: Parkinson, John. Unsubscribe automation. U.S. Patent Number 11196693, filed March 20, 2019, and published online on December 7, 2021. 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=11196693.PN.&OS=PN/11196693RS=PN/11196693

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