Anonymous Links to Protect Consumer Privacy

摘要

A method and system for bringing together online and offline advertising uses anonymous links that are associated with consumer data. The anonymous links allow processing without personally identifiable information (PII) in a secure environment. Data is matched using the anonymous links. The method and system allows a marketer to utilize offline data to precisely target advertisements without the use of PII, and to perform analytics concerning the use of the online advertisements to more precisely determine the effectiveness of multichannel marketing efforts.

主权项

1. A computer-implemented method for linking data related to a consumer, comprising the steps of:
a. at a marketing services provider server, associating a consumer record comprising consumer data including personally identifiable information (PII) with a consumer link, wherein the consumer link is uniquely associated with a particular consumer within a consumer population; b. removing all PII from the record; c. copying the consumer record to a secure storage area comprising a plurality of other consumer data records each including no PII; d. applying a first hash function to the consumer link to create an anonymous link, wherein the hash function is a one-way function whereby the anonymous link is not derivable from the consumer link; and e. storing the anonymous link with the consumer record in the secure storage area.