Serialized Image URL Tracking for First-Party Impression Cookies

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Solution Overview

Problem

The increasing restrictions on third-party cookies in web browsers limit companies' ability to effectively target and identify users for personalized advertising, necessitating a more efficient method to capture user impressions and actions.

Innovation Solution

Embedding pixels in digital content, such as advertisements and emails, to generate first-party cookies that store impression data, allowing companies to track user interactions and extend cookie lifespan through server-side requests.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Adaptability or versatility

If third-party cookies are used to track user information across websites, then cross-site tracking and targeted advertising capability is improved, but browser restrictions and user privacy concerns worsen

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvecross-site tracking capabilityVSAvoidbrowser restrictions and privacy concerns

Core Design Contradiction:

Adaptability or versatilityVSObject-affected harmful factors

Solution Approach 1:

Instead of using third-party cookies to track users across websites (conventional approach), the patent inverts the approach by using first-party cookies set by the user's own domain. The system sets cookies on the user's device when they visit the user's domain, allowing the user's domain to track user information across different websites without relying on third-party cookies, thus bypassing browser restrictions on third-party tracking.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #13The other way round (Inversion)

Solution Approach 2:

The patent introduces an intermediary mechanism where the user's domain acts as a mediator between the user and advertisers. By setting first-party cookies on the user's device, the user's domain becomes the intermediary that stores and shares user information with advertisers, eliminating the need for third-party cookies and their associated browser restrictions.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

2Reliability

If first-party cookies are used to store user data, then user privacy and browser compatibility are improved, but data storage capacity and tracking precision worsen

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveuser privacy and browser compatibilityVSAvoiddata storage capacity

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSQuantity of substance

Solution Approach 1:

The patent segments user data into multiple first-party cookies, each storing specific types of information (e.g., one cookie for impression data, another for action data). This segmentation allows the system to work within browser cookie size limits while maintaining comprehensive user tracking capability, as each cookie stores only the necessary data for its specific purpose rather than attempting to store all user information in a single large cookie.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #1Segmentation

Solution Approach 2:

The patent moves from storing all user data in a single third-party cookie to distributing data across multiple first-party cookies with different purposes. By organizing data into separate dimensional categories (impression data, action data, user profile data), the system maximizes storage capacity within browser constraints while maintaining comprehensive tracking precision through the coordinated use of these segmented cookies.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #17Another dimension (Dimensionality change)

3Productivity

If comprehensive user tracking is implemented to improve personalization, then advertising effectiveness is improved, but system complexity and implementation cost worsen

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveadvertising effectivenessVSAvoidsystem complexity

Core Design Contradiction:

ProductivityVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The patent implements a universal first-party cookie system that serves multiple functions: storing impression data, tracking user actions, maintaining user profiles, and enabling cross-site tracking. By designing the cookie infrastructure to handle all these diverse tracking needs through a unified approach, the system achieves comprehensive advertising effectiveness without proportionally increasing complexity, as the same first-party cookie mechanism handles all tracking purposes rather than requiring separate systems for each function.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #6Universality (Multi-functionality)

Data Source

PatentUS20250378120A1Facilitating inter-system data transfer with serialized data objects

Publication Date: 2025.12.11 CHARLES SCHWAB & CO INC

AI summary

A computer server includes processor and processing circuitry. The processing circuitry executes instructions to cause the computer server to select, from a database, a user from a plurality of users, encode a unique identifier for the selected user into an image uniform resource locator (URL), transmit a communication incorporating the image URL to a user agent associated with the selected user, receive, from the user agent, a hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) request for an image associated with the image URL, parse the received HTTP request to identify whether an impression cookie is present, and in response to the impression cookie being present, extract a set of impressions from the impression cookie and generate a new impression cookie based on the extracted set of impressions.