OTT Content Delivery Fake Segment URLs Prevent Ad Blocking
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Solution Overview
Problem
Dynamic advertisement insertion (DAI) in Over-the-Top (OTT) services faces challenges such as users skipping advertisements and the proliferation of advertisement blocking methods, which undermine revenue models by allowing clients to avoid or block ads, disrupting the financial viability of OTT services.
Innovation Solution
The system delivers a manifest with fake segment URLs to client devices, allowing for the selection and redirection of content based on client IDs without unique digital signatures, thereby preventing advertisement blockers from identifying and blocking advertising segments, and ensures personalized content delivery while maintaining a scalable and affordable infrastructure.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If dynamic advertisement insertion is implemented to generate revenue from OTT services, then personalized user experience and revenue generation are improved, but users can skip advertisements and advertisement blocking methods proliferate, undermining revenue models
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a content delivery network (CDN) as an intermediary between the OTT service server and client devices. The CDN redirects requests for advertising segments to alternative sources, acting as a mediator that prevents advertisement blockers from intercepting ads while maintaining personalized delivery. This intermediary layer resolves the contradiction by ensuring reliable ad delivery without compromising the personalized user experience.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary actions by pre-configuring CDN redirection rules and pre-positioning advertising segments in the CDN network before users access content. When a user requests content, the CDN is already prepared to redirect advertising segment requests to appropriate sources, preventing blocking before it can occur. This preliminary preparation ensures revenue generation continues uninterrupted despite user-side advertisement blocking attempts.
2Measurement precision
If unique digital signatures are used to identify advertising segments, then advertisement targeting precision is improved, but advertisement blockers can identify and block ads more effectively
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the advertisement identification mechanism from the client device and relocates it to the CDN server. Instead of relying on unique digital signatures that client devices can detect and block, the system uses CDN-based redirection where the server determines which content to deliver based on user profiles and advertising campaigns. This extraction removes the vulnerable identification method from the client-side environment.
Solution Approach 2:
The system creates a copy of the content delivery infrastructure through the CDN, which replicates the content but with modified advertising segment redirects. The CDN maintains a copy of the original content stream while inserting alternative advertising sources, allowing precise targeting without using detectable digital signatures that could be blocked by advertisement blocking software.
3Adaptability or versatility
If content redirection based on client IDs is implemented, then personalized content delivery is improved, but system complexity increases due to the need for manifest manipulation and URL redirection mechanisms
Solution Approach 1:
The CDN is designed to perform multiple functions: content delivery, advertising segment redirection, user profile matching, and revenue optimization. By making the CDN multi-functional, the system avoids adding separate complex components for each function. The universal CDN platform handles personalized content delivery through unified redirection mechanisms, reducing overall system complexity while maintaining adaptability.
Data Source
AI summary
A system for multimedia content delivery includes one or more processors; and a storage medium storing instructions. When executed, the instructions may configure the one or more processors to perform operations including: delivering to a set of client devices a manifest including fake segment URLs; receiving, from a client device, a segment request including a client ID and a requested URL. The method may also include selecting content for the at least one of the client devices based on the client ID when determining the requested URL is unavailable; redirecting the segment request to a content address associated with the selected content; and providing the selected content to the at least one of the client devices.