Methods for Creating User Profiles

Several techniques have been developed to reduce the time that a user has to spend in accessing web pages or information of interests to the user. According to one technique, web pages are classified into subject categories which are displayed to the user as hypertexts or UR lin!s. Upon selection of a particular subject category, a list of web page lin!s classified under the subject category are displayed to the user. Such a technique is used by "ahoo which organi#es information available over the web into categories such as $%ews & 'edia,( $Recreation & Sports,( $)ntertainment,( etc. *hile this technique provides some organi#ation of information+web pages available via the ,nternet, the subject categories are usually not sufficient enough to locate information of interest to the user. Since each subject category typically include a large number of web pages, another search within the subject category is typically necessitated to locate web pages of interest to the user. Additionally the subject categories are static and thus cannot be customi#ed for a particular user-s specific needs. .ther technique allows users to build personal web pages and to customi#e the contents of the web pages and to customi#e the contents of the web pages. Such a technique is used by "ahoo for their 'y "ahoo service. *hile this technique is an improvement over the subject category technique described above, it has a drawbac! in that it presumes that the user had prior !nowledge of the web pages which are of interest to the user. *eb pages which may have been of interest to the user, if !nown by the user cannot be facilitated by this technique. /urther, information regarding the contents of a personali#ed user web page is usually stored on a web server remote from the user-s client since the user has very little control over the collection and dissemination of the personali#ed information. 'ore sophisticated techniques facilitate a user-s web activities by collecting information about the user either explicitly or implicitly. 0hese techniques are typically associated with a particular web site and monitor and record a user-s interactions with web pages hosted by the websites. )xplicit information collection techniques typically solicit information from the user via web based forms questionnaires, surveys, opinion, polls, and the li!e. 1onventional implicit information collection techniques typically collect information using coo!ies or other inferential trac!ing programs. 0hese implicit techniques are

able to collect user related information without any effort or attention from the user. ,n the context of the ,nternet and the ***, a $coo!ie( generally refers to a bloc! of data that a web server stores on a client computer. 0he coo!ie is a bloc! of data which is configured by the server 2typically a web server3 to monitor and record information related to a user-s activities associated with one or more web pages hosted by the web server. 0he user related information typically includes information about selections, purchases, etc. made by the user at web pages hosted by the web server. 0he information stored by a coo!ie is generally accessed and used by web server when the particular server on the web page is accessed again by the client computer. 1oo!ies may be used by the servers to identify the users, to instruct the servers to send a customi#ed vision of the requested web page to the client computer, to submit account information for the user, and the li!e. A major drawbac! of conventional user related information gathering techniques is that the user has very little control on the information gathering process. 0his is because the information is usually gathered without the user-s permission by processes resident on web servers which are typically remote from the client computer used by the user. 0he user typically has no control either on the contents of the collected information or on when the information is collected. 0his lac! of control rises in security concerns for the user. 0hus, there is a need for a method which facilitates collections of user related information while minimi#ing the problems associated with conventional techniques. ,t is further desired that the user have complete control over the collections of the information.