PERSONALIZING COMMUNICATIONS USING ESTIMATES OF THE RECIPIENT'S SENSITIVITY LEVEL DERIVED FROM RESPONSES TO INFORMATION REQUESTS

摘要

A "message broker" (106) personalizes (304, 314, 404, 414, 504, 514) messages based on the recipient's estimated "privacy sensitivity." By carefully estimating (312, 412, 512) the sensitivity, the message broker (106) can achieve the advantages of personalized messaging without incurring the disadvantages of offending or scaring away the recipient (102). In a first set of embodiments, messages are sent (306, 316) to a recipient (102), and information about the recipient's responses is collected (308) and analyzed (310). The sensitivity level of the recipient (102) is estimated (312) based on this collected information. In a second set of embodiments, messages are sent (406, 416) that include an offer in which an incentive will be given to the recipient (102) in exchange for allowing a certain type of access to specific information associated with the recipient (102). In a third set of embodiments, the message broker (106) sends (506, 516) messages that request information associated with the recipient (102), but the messages do not include explicit offers to give incentives in exchange for the information.