USE OF AN INTERMEDIARY TO SECURELY PROVIDE CUSTOMER INFORMATION TO THIRD PARTY INTERNET MERCHANTS

摘要

The present invention provides a system and associated methods in which an information service (114) serves as an intermediary for storing and providing customer (102) information, such as payment and shipping information, to third party Internet merchants (312). In a preferred embodiment, the information service solicits customer (102) information from customers (102) and associates the customer (102) information with a user ID and a password. The information service stores the customer (102) information and associated user ID and password in a database accessible to an information service (114) server computer. An Internet merchant sets up a merchant web site (104) through which it solicits customers (102) to make purchases. In conjunction with displaying an option to make a purchase on a web page, the merchant provides an option to use the information service (114) to supply payment and/or shipping information. If the customer (102) chooses to use the information service (114), the information service (114) authenticates (310) the customer and provides the customer information (preferably in encrypted form) to the merchant (312). Transfers of the customer information may alternatively be initiated by the user during browsing of the information service (114) web site. The merchants (104) may optionally report information about the customer's purchases back to the information service (114), which may incorporate the information into a history page that is accessible to the customer (102). The information service may also use the aggregated purchase history data to generate an "interests" profile for the customer, which may be disseminated to the merchants and used to customize their web sites.