Techniques for monetizing anonymized context

Abstract

An embodiment of the present invention provides a method of offering anonymous incentive based context to service providers, comprising delivering context information of a user to the service provider, wherein prior to delivery of the context information to the service provider, the context is anonymized by removing identifying information and aggregating it with context from additional users.

We claim: 
     
         1 . A method of providing context information about a user of a mobile device, the context information including location information, the method comprising:
 tracking a location of the mobile device to determine location information;   anonymizing the location information by removing identifying information of the user;   aggregating the anonymized location information with location information from at least one additional mobile device; and   providing the anonymized and aggregated location information to a service provider, wherein the service provider rewards the user for the location information.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein an anonymizing service provides the anonymizing and knows the identities of users but has no access to context or monetary rewards and wherein the service provider receives the anonymized context but cannot attribute it to a specific source. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 the user submitting an offer request for a list of available offers from the service provider and upon receipt, the service provider selects a set of offers to deliver to the user; and   wherein upon receipt of at least one offer, the user chooses whether to participate.   
     
     
         4 . A product including a non-transitory storage medium having stored thereon instructions that, when executed by a machine, result in:
 tracking a location of the mobile device to determine location information;   anonymizing the location information by removing identifying information of the user;   aggregating the anonymized location information with location information from at least one additional mobile device; and   providing the anonymized and aggregated location information to a service provider, wherein the service provider rewards the user for the location information.   
     
     
         5 . The product of  claim 4 , wherein an anonymization service provides the anonymizing and knows the identities of users but has no access to context or monetary rewards and wherein the service provider receives the anonymized context but cannot attribute it to a specific source. 
     
     
         6 . The product of  claim 5 , further comprising:
 the user submitting an offer request for a list of available offers from the service provider and upon receipt, the service provider selects a set of offers to deliver to the user; and   wherein upon receipt of at least one offer, the user chooses whether to participate.   
     
     
         7 . A mobile communication device, comprising:
 a tracker to track the mobile communication device to provide location information about a user of the mobile device;   an information assimilator to derive context information about the user, the context information including the location information of the user provided by the tracker,   a communication platform to communicate the context information to an aggregator and anonymizer, the aggregator and anonymizer to aggregate and anonymize the context information with users of other mobile communication devices;   wherein the aggregated and anonymized context information is provided to a services provider; and   wherein the services provider is to provide rewards to the user for receiving the aggregated and anonymized context information.   
     
     
         8 . The mobile communication device of  claim 7 , wherein the anonymizer provides the anonymizing and knows the identities of users but has no access to context or monetary rewards and wherein the services provider receives the anonymized context but cannot attribute it to a specific source. 
     
     
         9 . A system, comprising:
 a mobile communication device, the mobile communicating device including a tracker to track the mobile communication device to provide location information about a user of the mobile device, and an information assimilator to derive context information about the user, the context information including the location information of the user provided by the tracker,   a aggregator to aggregate the context information with users of other mobile communication devices;   an anonymizer to anonymize the context information; and   a services provider to receive the aggregated and anonymized context information, wherein the services provider is to provide rewards to the user for receiving the aggregated and anonymized context information.