E-commerce gets real with patent 8,788,445

Retailers’ quest to offer shoppers a personalized experience just took a step forward thanks to a newly issue patent designed to detect and eliminate non-human Web traffic.

In what appears to be a victory over Internet bots that troll web sites and distort user data, Certona said its newest patent, U.S. Patent No. 8,788,445, titled, “System and Method for Quantifying and Detecting Non-Normative Behavior,” will help retailers offer a better e-commerce experience. The solution the patent was granted for ensures retailers are equipped to detect and eliminate abnormal Web traffic from Internet bots thus maintaining the integrity of customer data that informs Certona’s Personalized Experience Management platform.

“Non-human Web traffic creates inaccurate data that impedes the delivery of optimized experiences for a brand’s customers. As retailers come to rely on personalization systems driven by consumer site behavior, it is critical that data is real and representative of true customers and not bots,” said Dr. Geoffrey Hueter, CTO of Certona. “The approval of our newest patent reinforces Certona’s expertise in advanced modeling and ability to keep client data free from corruption and potential fraud. Conversely, the underlying technology also groups and classifies real customers, thereby enabling retailers to understand and target their customers more effectively.”

Certona said its patented technology addresses the critical need to combat Internet bot activity by weeding out irregular Web and mobile traffic, indicated by structurally repetitive behavior and confusion from site navigation and path analysis. Retailers can then automatically capture, flag and sequester irregular activity from certain segments; thereby maintaining a high fidelity in the data used to personalize a brand’s customer experiences.