Cookie Stitching Server for Cross-Device User Identification
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional systems fail to recognize users across different computing devices, requiring re-entry of authentication information for accessing sensitive content, which is inconvenient and inefficient.
Innovation Solution
Implementing a cookie stitching server that correlates users with their devices and notifies the network server, allowing access to varying levels of content without re-authentication by identifying users through stored records, even when switching devices.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If conventional systems use encrypted cookies for user recognition, then users can access content without re-authentication on the same device, but users cannot be recognized across different computing devices
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a cookie stitching server as an intermediary component that bridges the gap between conventional cookie-based authentication and cross-device recognition. This server receives cookies from multiple devices, correlates them to identify the same user, and notifies the network server to provide appropriate content access. The intermediary enables cross-device user identification without requiring users to manually provide authentication information on each new device.
2Reliability
If the system requires re-entry of authentication information for each new device, then security is maintained, but user experience deteriorates due to repeated authentication steps
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by collecting and correlating user identification data from multiple devices before the user actually needs to access content. The cookie stitching server proactively identifies users across devices and notifies the network server in advance, so that when a user accesses content from a new device, the authentication process is already prepared and can be completed automatically without requiring the user to manually re-enter their authentication information.
3Ease of operation
If the network server implements cross-device user identification, then user experience improves, but system complexity increases due to additional correlation and notification mechanisms
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the cross-device identification system into distinct functional components: a cookie stitching server that handles data collection and correlation from multiple devices, and a network server that manages content delivery. This segmentation allows each component to focus on specific tasks, making the overall system more manageable despite the added complexity. The cookie stitching server operates independently to build user profiles, while the network server uses this information to control content access, separating the identification logic from the content delivery logic.
Data Source
AI summary
Techniques are disclosed to leverage third party “cookie stitchers” for cross-device user identification, which may be used by a network server to selectively provide content to a user. The techniques include a cookie stitcher associating a user with multiple computing devices, which in turn notifies the network server when the same user requests access to provided content on separate occasions from different computing devices. The cookie stitcher may also have access to a user record regarding the identified user, and may provide this record data to the network server to identify other characteristics about the user. Based upon the particular type of information that is identified, the network server may provide varying degrees of access to content and/or allow the user to interact with one or more applications supported by the network server in different ways.