Automated Electronic Commerce Data Extracting and Analyzing
Contents
1. INPUT OUTPUT UNIT 1144 e 110 4 DATABASE ANALYZER 112 Patent Application Publication Oct 23 2008 Sheet 1 of 9 US 2008 0262960 Al E COMMERCE E COMMERCE 1004 02 SERVER 2 104 SERVER 3 E COMMERCE SERVER COMMUNICATION INTERFACE EXTRACTOR 116 DATABASE INPUT OUTPUT UNIT 114 ANALYZER FIGURE 1 Patent Application Publication Oct 23 2008 Sheet 2 of 9 VISIT NEXT SITE US 2008 0262960 A1 r 200 VISIT E COMMERCE SITE USE NEXT SEARCH 202 PERFORM SEARCH 2044 FIGURE 2 RETRIEVE RESULTS FROM SEARCH ANALYZE RESULT ACCORDING TO RULES AND ASSOCIATE RESULT WITH REVELANCE CODE WISITED ALL E COMMERCE SITES 212 sii NO YES ALLOW USER TO QUERY DATABASE AND 214 VIEW RESULTS US 2008 0262960 A1 Oct 23 2008 Sheet 3 of 9 Patent Application Publication Juno ias mem man Alis REED EDT JBjuas SOT 431102 ghz jua Tite Ssuysseg jeans 1edd ENSINO BAS 1sdan Co k u O OA COL C SEE eq SS Cq FEBS ESI MUR GEIS LO BE E ZI 9 une je BUOOR pue M MITIRNON ra RS or su SEE ESSES SUE ETS ST E sie PE GI TE GT GT DN EVA ZZ pee Eee ad i A E 4 E Ea Z g A L kun US 22. a company would be interested in monitoring their own products being sold or monitoring potential counterfeits of their products A company may also be interested in monitoring sales of their competitors as well 0026 The system can automatically visit one or more online auction sites retrieve relevant information store the relevant information in a database and then analyze the rel evant information in order to identify which individual auc tions may be of interest to the company An auction site can be a web site wherein participants can place items for sale and potential buyers bid on the items electronically An e com merce site is any site which allows for electronic buying and selling of items which includes auction sites 0027 For example the ACME Company sells widgets ACME is facing a counterfeit widget problem many of which are being sold on the e ray auction site The widgets are being advertised as the real thing and potential buyers have no way to determine online whether the widgets are genuine ACME widgets If they purchase such a widget and receive it shipped to them only then can the purchaser possibly tell that the widget is counterfeit However many such purchasers either would not or cannot discern that their widget is counterfeit or perhaps don t care If a purchaser is unhappy with the widget the original seller of the counterfeit widget may even refuse to take it back 0028 A method according to the pre
3. receiving additional seller data from the online auction site and f storing the additional seller data in the database 0012 These together with other aspects and advantages which will be subsequently apparent reside in the details of construction and operation as more fully hereinafter described and claimed reference being had to the accompa nying drawings forming a part hereof wherein like numerals refer to like parts throughout BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 0013 Further features and advantages of the present inventive concept as well as the structure and operation of various embodiments of the present inventive concept will become apparent and more readily appreciated from the fol lowing description of the preferred embodiments taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings of which 0014 FIG 1 is a block diagram illustrating exemplary components used in a an e commerce data extracting and analyzing system according to an embodiment 0015 FIG 2 is a flowchart illustrating an exemplary method of extracting data from e commerce systems and storing them according to an embodiment 0016 FIG 3 is a first output illustrating an exemplary presentation of auction data stored in a database according to an embodiment 0017 FIG 4 is a second output illustrating an exemplary presentation of auction data stored in a database according to an embodiment 0018 FIG 5 is a flowchart illustrating an exemplary
4. auction data stored in a database according to an embodiment US 2008 0262960 A1 0054 A list of auctions is displayed for tickets for all Miami Moon games on site one in an individual auction window 301 Each individual auction displayed can be clicked by the user which will bring up further detailed information about that auction including any data retrievable from the actual auction site itself for example seller s name seller s address seller s phone number seller s email address seller s web site item description opening price list of bid ders and bid history any associated image files item descrip tion feedback on seller etc 0055 A date column 300 lists a date and time that the auction was started A date field can also be used which indicates the date and time that the data was last extracted An ID number column 302 is an ID number of the auction assigned by the e commerce site hosting the particular auc tion A description column 304 is a description of the auction item being sold A current price column 306 lists a current price of the auction A quantity column 308 lists a current quantity of the item that is available Note that closed auctions are typically also stored in the database as well and can be displayed or not depending on the user s preferences Closed auction data is still relevant because a seller s behavior in past auctions may be relevant to the determination of which res
5. concept Further since numerous modifications and changes will readily occur to those skilled in the art it is not desired to limit the inventive concept to the exact construction and operation illustrated and described and accordingly all suitable modifications and equivalents may be resorted to falling within the scope of the invention What is claimed is 1 A computer implemented method to display auction data the method comprising automatically visiting at least one online auction site using a robot and automatically retrieving auction data from the at least one online auction site the auction data comprising individual sales and their respective sales information and storing the auction data in a database receiving sales properties from a user and retrieving a subset of the sales data from the database based on the properties and displaying the subset to the user 2 The method as recited in claim 1 wherein the automati cally visiting comprises visiting at least two different online auction sites 3 The method as recited in claim 2 wherein the properties comprise identities of two different auction sites and the displaying merges auction data from the two different auction sites into a single display 4 The method as recited in claim 1 further comprising automatically applying rules to a particular auction in the auction database to determine whether the particular auction has characteristics associated with un
6. implementing a time sensitive status indicator according to an embodiment 0109 The method can start with operation 910 which associates a particular auction with a time sensitive status For example if the particular auction was just retrieved from an auction site the user may desire that a reminder be imple mented when that auction is not reviewed within a certain time This option can be configured at the option ofthe user of the system Thus the particular auction can have a status of auction not yet reviewed After a predetermined amount of time can be set by the user e g two days the auction s status can change automatically to something that would get the user s attention in order so that user would quickly review the particular auction 0110 From operation 910 the method can proceed to operation 912 which determines whether the predetermined amount of time has passed without a status change If the predetermined amount of time has passed without a status US 2008 0262960 A1 change or a compatible action by the user on the particular auction to change its status then the method can proceed to operation 914 0111 In operation 914 a special status can then be asso ciated with the particular auction For example the special status can be auction not yet reviewed two days passed The indicator for this status may be a flashing icon or something that would be likely to get the user s attention When the user th
7. method of outputting auction data from a database according to an embodiment 0019 FIG 6 is a flowchart illustrating an exemplary method of shutting down auctions according to an embodi ment 0020 FIG 7 is a flowchart illustrating an exemplary method of using additional information aside from the seller s auction description in order to apply rules according to an embodiment 0021 FIG 8 is an exemplary flowchart illustrating a method of making nominal bids in an auction in order to extract seller data according to an embodiment 0022 FIG 9A is a flowchart illustrating an exemplary method of associating status indicators with auctions accord ing to an embodiment and 0023 FIG 9B is a flowchart illustrating an exemplary method of implementing a time sensitive status indicator according to an embodiment DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS 0024 Reference will now be made in detail to the pres ently preferred embodiments of the inventive concept examples of which are illustrated in the accompanying draw ings wherein like reference numerals refer to like elements throughout 0025 The inventive concept relates to an apparatus method and computer readable storage medium to imple ment an automated with little or no human interaction required method wherein a company can monitor products US 2008 0262960 A1 being sold at one or more online auction sites or any other type of e commerce site Typically
8. not yet reviewed by user 0058 A data source window 316 lists different data sources and a product on that data source that the user can click or unclick A data source in this context means a par ticular e commerce site e g such as an auction site e ray and auction data relating to auctions for a particular product or products For example the first data source is site 1 this can be for example an e auction site and the product is Moons a fictional sports team and the product are tickets Oct 23 2008 for their games Thus the first data source are all auctions for Moons tickets that are being held on site 1 If the user clicks so that there is a checkbox therein a particular data source then auctions for the respective product from that data source will appear on the rest of the windows outputs being dis played If a particular data source is not checked then auc tions from that data source will not be displayed The second data source from the top a dark shade of grey indicates auctions on Site 2 for monsters a fictional sports team 0059 On the top right of the data source window 316 are three warning levels A user can click or unclick each of these three warning levels The levels that are clicked will be dis played on the page otherwise they will not For example a user may wish to only see auctions with a high warning level thus the user would click the leftmost darkest box while making sure t
9. warn ing level which indicates a level of suspicion that a particular auction is engaged in prohibited or undesirable activity 0101 An advantage of maintaining status indicators is so that the user of the system can easily keep track of which auctions they have already reviewed manually With respect to problematic auctions there are several points in the review process e g a first review forwarding the auction for addi Oct 23 2008 tional review reporting the auction and ultimately recogniz ing that the auction has been stopped 0102 Further a special status can be assigned to an auc tion after a predetermined amount of time has passed e g 2 days since the auction was picked up by the system and awaiting a user review different special status can also be assigned after a predetermined amount of time has passed e g 1 day from when the auction was first reported to the e commerce site to be shut down When an auction is removed a special list can be maintained in the database of removed auctions 0103 FIG 9A is a flowchart illustrating an exemplary method of associating status indicators with auctions accord ing to an embodiment 0104 The method can begin with operation 900 which enters a particular auction into the database and associates the particular auction with an initial status Typically the particu lar auction will have just been retrieved from an auction site The initial status can be for
10. 0037 An extractor 108 is used to automatically visit any combination of the e commerce sites served by the e com merce servers The extractor can comprise a computer which is connected to the internet 106 or other computer commu US 2008 0262960 A1 nications network with a robot which can visit web sites automatically The robot can store URLS of different e com merce sites and automatically visit these sites by connecting with their respective hosts or servers using a computer com munications network such as the Internet Data retrieved from the hosts can be indexed and stored in a database Data can be stored in numerous ways For example the raw screen images can be captured and saved e g in JPG form for later parsing and analysis Alternatively all html data can be saved for later parsing and analysis Alternatively the extractor can identify only targeted data e g actual auction summaries and store the auction summaries in the database 110 The robot browser can crawl the auction sites retrieving indexing and storing all data it comes across or only data that is relevant to the user e g by limiting data retrieved to those containing particular keywords etc 0038 Note that methods described herein apply not only to online auction sites but any type of commerce site as well Thus auction data can also be considered sales data and any information related to a sale on an e commerce site can b
11. 008 0262960 A1 Oct 23 2008 Sheet 4 of 9 Patent Application Publication 7 deno SSE MEN FE LLIPI sunsseg jane sd dri ABS SHS 18 407 BAST 13 407 18343 3137 13107 AS sat saddn TO E0 002 Woi sSI4hos abuey med X paeoqusea inoBo szepdr enF ss EBMNOS ESEC udsuep Woy se REESEN 609568998 S B E WAT TT Ea CZ 7 mms RE mu summer N ODZ DE E LODZITIE diz ada sued Patent Application Publication Oct 23 2008 Sheet 5 of 9 US 2008 0262960 Al INPUT DISPLAY 500 pREFERENCES 502 RETRIEVE RELEVANT AUCTION DATA TABULATE RELEVANT 504 AUCTION DATA DISPLAY TABULATED gt 06 DATA FIGURE 5 Patent Application Publication Oct 23 2008 Sheet 6 of 9 US 2008 0262960 Al RETRIEVE AUCTION 600 DATA APPLY RULES TO AUCTION DATA TO 602 IDENTIFY AUCTIONS QUALIFYING FOR SHUT DOWN HUBA AUTHORIZATICUT NEEDED 10 SHUI DONN AUCTIONS 804 ALLOW USER TO MANUALLY REVIEW SHUT EACH AUCTION FOR SHUT DOWN TRANSMIT ALL AUCTIONS FOR SHUT DOWN TO RESPECTIVE AUCTION SITE FIGURE 6 Patent Application Publication Oct 23 2008 Sheet 7 of 9 US 2008 0262960 Al 700 IDENTIFY SELLER OF CURRENT AUCTION REVIEW SELLER S OR OTHERS PRIOR 702 AUCTIONS OR OTHER DATA SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY 704 INVOLVING SELLER INCORPORATE INFORMATION IN 06
12. T CURRENT AUCTION S WARNING LEVEL DETERMINATION FIGURE 7 Patent Application Publication Oct 23 2008 Sheet 8 of 9 US 2008 0262960 Al 800 CRAWL AUCTIONS AUCTION ENCOUNTERED WHERE SELLER DATA IS NEEDED PLACE NOMINAL BID ON AUCTION RETRIEVE SELLER 3061 INFORMATION AND STORE IN DATABASE FIGURE 8 Patent Application Publication Oct 23 2008 Sheet 9 of 9 US 2008 0262960 Al ENTER PARTICULAR AUCTION IN ASSOCIATE 900 DATABASE AND 910 PARTICULAR ASSOCIATED WITH AUCTION WITH TIME INITIAL STATUS SENSITIVE STATUS USER TAKES ACTION THAT CHANGES STATUS NO PREDETERMINED NO 912 TIME PASSES WITHOUT STATUS CHANGE 20 904 UPDATE ASSOCIATED 2 914 ASSOCIATE SPECIAL PARTICULAR STATUS TO AUCTION PARTICULAR AUCTION Y DISPLAY DISPLAY PARTICULAR 016 PARTICULAR AUCTION WITH ASSOCIATED STATUS AUCTION WITH ASSOCIATED STATUS FIGURE 9A FIGURE 9B US 2008 0262960 A1 AUTOMATED ELECTRONIC COMMERCE DATA EXTRACTING AND ANALYZING SYSTEM CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS 0001 This application claims benefit to provisional appli cation 60 912 666 which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 0002 1 Field of the Invention 0003 The present inventive concept is directed to a method apparatus and computer readable storage medium to automatically monitor and retrieve relevant data from online auction
13. alyze items for sale on electronic commerce web sites such as auctions 0009 The above aspects can be obtained by a method that includes a automatically visiting at least one online auction site using a robot and automatically retrieving auction data from the at least one online auction site the auction data comprising individual sales and their respective sales infor mation and storing the auction data in a database b receiv ing sales properties from a user and c retrieving a subset of the sales data from the database based on the properties and displaying the subset to the user 0010 The above aspects can also be obtained by a method that includes a reviewing first data comprising information on a first online sale offer offered by a username and b applying rules to the first data and additional sales data stored in a database to determine a warning level for the first online sale offer the additional sales data comprising data describ ing transactions aside from the first online sale offer 0011 The above aspects can also be obtained by a method that includes a automatically visiting an online auction site and automatically retrieving individual auction data for an Oct 23 2008 individual auction b ascertaining a seller of the individual auction c determining that the seller is not in a database storing auction data d automatically placing a nominal bid on an item for auction in the individual auction e
14. alyzed according to a set of rules The appli cation of rules to determine whether a particular auction is involved in undesirable activity is not limited to the informa tion about that particular auction but any other data the data base may be relevant and can be used as well 0032 An undesirable or irregular characteristic means any characteristic that is indicative that activity unfa vorable to a subject company might be more likely to be taking place The undesirable characteristic does not neces sarily imply that the unfavorable activity is definitely taking place but only that it might be a warning sign An undesirable characteristic may be found in an individual action summary a pattern of behavior by a particular seller or any other con duct taking place at an online merchant site that may indicate that something undesirable to a particular party may be more likely to be taking place It is possible that an auction may have a lot of undesirable characteristics according to a set of rules but nevertheless there is nothing wrong with the auc tion at all 0033 Once auction data has been gathered from one or more auction sites then the data can be analyzed according to a set of current rules and associated with warning levels If an individual auction is determined to be suspicious then it can be associated with a respective warning level Different warn ing levels can be used corresponding to a different level of
15. anufacturer may mind if a seller is selling large quantities e g 20 or more pairs of their jeans Sellers may attempt to avoid detection by setting up multiple accounts names and selling large volumes of the products under different aliases Another scenario in which prior auctions may be relevant to analyzing a current auction is if a prior seller is shut down and possibly banned from the e commerce site the seller may try to set up a brand new account name If a new user is registered at a close proximity in time to when a prior user was shut down this might be indicative that the new user may bethe same entity as the prior user Oct 23 2008 0086 FIG 7 is a flowchart illustrating an exemplary method ofusing additional information aside from the seller s auction description in order to apply rules according to an embodiment 0087 The method can start with operation 700 which identifies a seller of a current auction 0088 The method can then proceed to operation 702 which reviews transactions which can be the seller s other auctions or others prior auctions or any other data in the database as well For example if a seller s prior auction was shut down for selling counterfeit goods or other prohibited conduct then this information may be indicative that the seller has a higher likelihood than the average user to be partaking in prohibited conduct Other sellers auctions can be reviewed as well to determine if th
16. as United States Malone et al US 20080262960A1 a2 Patent Application Publication ao Pub No US 2008 0262960 A1 43 Pub Date Oct 23 2008 54 AUTOMATED ELECTRONIC COMMERCE Related U S Application Data DATA EXTRACTING AND ANALYZING SYSTEM 60 Provisional application No 60 912 666 filed on Apr 18 2007 Publication Classification 76 Inventors Wade Malone Atlanta GA US 51 Int Cl Tze Ming Ku Atlanta GA US nos Stephen Herbst Atlanta GA US G06Q 30 00 2006 01 Robert Frohwein Atlanta GA 52 US Cl naa a are 705 37 US 57 ABSTRACT Correspondence Address MUSKIN amp CUSICK LLC 30 Vine Street SUITE 6 Lansdale PA 19446 US 21 Appl No 12 104 346 22 Filed Apr 16 2008 A method apparatus and computer readable storage to implement an automatic e commerce site monitoring system Data can be automatically gathered from online e commerce sites such as online auctions and analyzed and stored in a database A merchant can query the database to find all e commerce sites selling their products Suspicious transac tions can automatically be identified to the merchant who then may have the option to shut down the particular offend ing sales A suspicious transaction may be one that has char acteristics likely of some prohibited activity such as selling counterfeit or grey market goods INTERNET E COMMERCE SERVER COMMUNICATION 1164 INTERFACE 108 EXTRACTOR
17. ata stored in a database to determine a warning level for the first online sale offer the additional sales data compris ing data describing transactions aside from the first online sale offer 11 The method as recited in claim 10 wherein the apply ing determines whether there is a correlation between the username and a flagged sale in the additional sales data the flagged sale flagged as violating or having been suspected of violating the e commerce site s or merchant rules 12 The method as recited in claim 10 wherein the first online sale offer is conducted at a different e commerce site than at least one transaction in the additional sales data 13 The method as recited in claim 10 wherein the apply ing evaluates whether the username correlates to a seller involved in another transaction in the additional sales data while using a different username 14 The method as recited in claim 13 wherein the apply ing compares a time the first online sale offer was created with times that other transactions in the additional sales data were completed 15 The method as recited in claim 13 wherein the apply ing compares a time the seller of the first online sale offer was created with times that sellers of other transactions in the additional sales data were banned or their auction shut down 16 The method as recited in claim 10 wherein the apply ing compares item descriptions in the first online auction with item descriptions in
18. ation 206 which processes the next result that was retrieved from operation 204 0049 If the determination in operation 208 determines that all results have been reviewed then the method can proceed to operation 210 which determines whether all searches for the current e commerce site have been per formed If not then the method can return to operation 202 which uses a next search The searches used for each respec tive e commerce site can be prestored 0050 If the determination in operation 210 determines that all searches for the current e commerce site have been performed then the method can proceed to operation 212 which determines whether all of the targeted e commerce sites have been visited If not then the method can return to operation 200 which visits a next targeted site 0051 If the determination in operation 212 determines that all of the targeted e commerce sites have been visited then the method can proceed to operation 214 which allows the user to query the database and view the results 0052 Once the data is in the database and the warning levels have been associated with each auction the data is ready for viewing by a user An interface can be implemented to allow each user a pleasing and visually intuitive interactive experience so that the user can view the information he or she wishes to view and take any actions in an easy manner 0053 FIG 3 is an exemplary first output illustrating pre sentation of
19. confidence For example a low warning level can be used if an auction contains one or more irregularities which have some but not a high correlation to unfavorable or prohibited activity For example if an auction is selling slightly below market price this may be unusual but probably not related to a prohibited activity since the markets may not be entirely efficient A higher warning level can be used if an auction contains irregularities that more highly correlated to unfavor able or prohibited activity For example if a seller on e ray is already known by the system to have sold counterfeit items in the past then all auctions by this seller may be flagged with a high warning level flag since a past counterfeiter is very likely to continue selling further counterfeit goods 0034 A list of auctions can be generated that have a pre determined warning level of suspicion associated with them 0035 FIG 1 is a block diagram illustrating exemplary components used in an e commerce data extracting and ana lyzing system according to an embodiment 0036 E commerce server 1 100 e commerce server 2 102 and e commerce server 3 104 all serve different e com merce sites which can be an online auction e g E BAY an online store e g AMAZON COM a services market e g E LANCE COM or any other site in which people can visit using a computer communications network such as the Inter net 106 and buy and or sell products or services
20. cription of the widget for example if the description of the widget in the auction states that the ACME widget is a gold widget but the ACME company does not even make gold widgets then the widget must be counterfeit 0030 Not all counterfeit widgets can be identified by the data that is available on the auction site but nevertheless the more detailed a set of rules that is applied to the auction summaries the better the results can be In addition to the data available on the auction site patterns of use can also be gathered stored and analyzed in order to also facilitate in the detection of undesirable characteristics For example con sider an auction of an original autographed poster that uses a particular image file e g the JPG of the poster and then after a buyer wins and the auction is completed the same Oct 23 2008 seller offers another original autographed poster using the same image file Either the original sale was never completed or the original buyer returned the item or the seller is selling another original autographed poster that looks exactly the same as the prior one which means the autographed poster is likely a reproduction not an original 0031 Thus in addition to analyzing individual auction summaries auction behavior can be monitored and stored as well in order to identify undesirable characteristics of an auction For example all auctions of a particular seller can monitored and an
21. database according to an embodiment 0068 The method can begin with operation 500 which inputs display preferences from the user This can be done using a graphical user interface GUI and the user can type or click his or her filters of the auction data The filters narrow what will be displayed For example the filters can comprise parameters such as auction date range input sources warning levels etc For example a user may wish to see all current auctions for the past month for two different auction sites for two related products The user can also filter data by other fields as well such as particular seller s particular locations of sellers price locations of seats if the product is tickets or any other data the database may have 0069 From operation 500 the method can proceed to operation 502 which retrieves the relevant data from the database Note that the data the user requests to see is not typically retrieved in real time from the auction sites but is instead retrieved from the database which is constantly and automatically being updated by robot crawlers 0070 From operation 502 the method proceeds to opera tion 504 which tabulates the relevant auction data retrieved in operation 502 into an attractive and presentable display wherein the user can easily get a visual picture of what he wants to see see FIGS 3 4 Any auction data stored in the database can be tabulated and presented in any manner such a
22. desirable Oct 23 2008 activity and if so then associating a high warning level to the particular auction and displaying the high warning level along with data relating to the particular auction 5 The method as recited in claim 4 wherein a low warning level can also be associated to the particular auction if the characteristics of the particular auction do not meet a thresh old needed for the high warning level 6 The method as recited in claim 1 further comprising automatically applying rules to a plurality of the auctions in the auction data to determine an irregular auction list and outputting the irregular auction list 7 The method as recited in claim 1 wherein the retrieving auction data comprises automatically submitting a keyword search in the online auction site and retrieving all results of the keyword search 8 The method as recited in claim 1 wherein the properties comprise a particular warning level and the displaying limits output to only auctions associated with the particular warning level 9 The method as recited in claim 8 wherein the auction data comprises auctions from at least two different auction sites 10 A computer implemented method to determine suspi cious activity on an e commerce site the method comprising reviewing first data comprising information on a first online sale offer offered by a username on an e com merce site and applying rules to the first data and additional sales d
23. e considered sales data Auction data or sales data included any transactions known to the database including open auctions or sales offers close auctions or completed sales or any other transaction information The concepts of an auction on an auction site and a sale on an e commerce site but not an auction site can be considered and used interchangeably herein 0039 An analyzer 112 can retrieve data from the database 110 and analyze the data by applying rules to the data Rule sets can also be retrieved from the database 110 or any other storage The analyzer applies the rules to each individual auction summary The results of the application determine whether the individual auction summary is flagged or tagged with a tag which represents irregular activity The analyzer can either tag individual auction summaries stored in the database 110 and or the analyzer can generate a separate list of irregular auctions which can also be stored in the database 110 or other storage with associated tags 0040 An input output unit 114 can receive data from the analyzer 112 or rules engine and or the database to display data to the user The user can also identify particular data that the user wishes to view upon wish the input output unit 114 can query the database to retrieve the particular data and output the data to the user 0041 An e commerce server communication interface 116 can be used to communicate with e commerce servers In
24. ed in all of the other windows in the display The graphs can be displayed based ona temporal duration e g by hour day week month etc A time distribution window 404 displays the warning level numbers for each e commerce site tabulated by week The warning levels can be color coded for example red or dark grey high level of alert suspicion orange or medium gray some level of alert suspicion and yellow or light gray no level of alert suspicion Of course any number of levels can be used with any other type of indicators e g colors shapes etc 0065 Thepie chart window 406 shows a pie chart showing the breakdown between the auctions falling in the designated date range entered in the date entry window 402 and the data sources A histogram is also shown indicating a breakdown of the different warning levels among those auctions 0066 Thus it is apparent from FIGS 3 4 that a merchant can view how their products are being sold on different e commerce sites The display paradigm makes it user for users to identify e commerce sites that might be more fertile grounds for prohibited or undesirable auctions than others For example in FIG 3 on 3 17 on site 1 the sales of tickets US 2008 0262960 A1 for Monsters have an abnormally high amount of the dark grey high level of alert suspicion warning level auctions 0067 FIG 5 is a flowchart illustrating an exemplary method of outputting auction data from a
25. en takes action on the particular auction e g reviews it the status can then be changed to a new status such as auction reviewed no further action taken 0112 From operations 912 or 914 the method can pro ceed to operation 916 which can display information about the particular auction including the auction number item description and any other information known about the auc tion and the associated status The displaying in operation 916 does not have to be performed immediately after opera tions 912 or 914 but can be performed whenever the user enters a query or performs some action that would display the particular auction 0113 Itis noted that the methods described herein can be applied to any type of e commerce site wherein goods are bought or sold via a computer communications network 0114 Itis noted that any of the operations described herein can be performed in any sensible order Further any operation s may be optional Any method described herein also includes hardware needed to implement the method and also any software that can be stored on a computer readable stor age medium which can instruct the hardware to perform the method 0115 The many features and advantages of the inventive concept are apparent from the detailed specification and thus it is intended by the appended claims to cover all such features and advantages of the inventive concept that fall within the true spirit and scope of the inventive
26. ere is any connection to the current seller For example if a description of goods in the seller s auction description is identical or close to a descrip tion of goods in another seller s auction description it may be likely that both sellers are actually the same entity Transac tions can include open auctions or offers to sell goods at non auction sites or closed auctions or completed sales at non auction sites or any other data stored in the database An auction placed by a seller can also be considered to be a sales offer 0089 The auction data stored in the database can be reviewed for characteristics according to the rules in use to determine what if any relevance other data may have aside from the data relating to the actual auction being analyzed 0090 Additional data that might be relevant could be user feedback For example if a sham seller identity a new iden tity username set up to avoid detection or association with a prior username is set up then the sham seller would desire to have positive feedback as quickly as possible Thus the sham seller may have a small number of his friends or even other sham identities the sham seller has set up buy nominal items from him or her in order that the buy can leave positive feedback Typically an auction site would not allow feedback to be left unless a sale was actually completed Thus a seller who desires positive feedback can simply close auctions with other sham identi
27. example auction not yet reviewed 0105 From operation 900 the method can proceed to operation 902 which determines whether the user has taken anaction that changes the status ofthe particular auction For example the user can review the auction and conclude that there is nothing suspicious about it and manually change its status by clicking icons or any other way using an I O inter face to status 2 auction reviewed no action taken The user can also change its status to any other status for example if the user finds something suspicious about the auction it can change the status to status 3 auction reviewed forwarded for internal investigation 0106 If the determination in operation 902 determines that the user has taken an action that would change the status then the method can proceed to operation 904 which updates the status of the particular auction to the new status 0107 From either operations 902 or 904 the method can proceed to operation 906 which can display information about the particular auction including the auction number item description and any other information known about the auction and the associated status The displaying in opera tion 906 does not have to be performed immediately after operations 902 or 904 but can be performed whenever the user enters a query or performs some action that would dis play the particular auction 0108 FIG 9B is a flowchart illustrating an exemplary method of
28. ge of data and or behaviors For example when examining an auction in order to determine potential coun terfeiting or other undesirable activity the following char acteristics may relevant and indicative a Sale of particular products associated with a brand s name online but not actu ally manufactured by the seller b Identification of particu lar known fraudulent counterfeit sellers c Identification of pictures taken from a client s website and used on an auction commerce site d ID of language taken from a client s web Oct 23 2008 site and used for the listing of the good e ID of a link back to the client s site f ID ofa seller or sellers selling multiple goods in the same listing in multiple listings over multiple days weeks months g ID of a seller with similar seller feedback as a by known or likely counterfeiters fraudsters b ID of a seller with the description of goods similar to the description of goods used by known or likely counterfeiters fraudsters 1 ID of a picture of a good that has been altered j ID of selling times used by counterfeiters in order to avoid detection k ID of use of non applicable categories by sell ers in order to avoid detection as a fraud counterfeit 1 Pric ing of goods that are out of line for the type of product being offered m Requirement of payment via a payment mecha nism known to be used by fraudsters counterfeiters 0074 A secondary ticket marke
29. he other two warning level boxes are unchecked 0060 The time distribution window 314 illustrates the different tabulations on different days or other time inter vals For example the first graph labeled 3 15 shows hori zontal boxes in colors representing all data sources from the data source window 316 The vertical bars represent the amount of each auction that falls under each warning level Thus for example looking at 3 17 the site 1 monsters auc tion since this matches the color of the second bar from the right on 3 17 has a very large amount of dark grey high warning auctions 0061 A piechart window 312 displays a pie chart showing the distribution of auctions for the given settings e g dates selected among each of the data sources e g particular e commerce sites A histogram also shows the distribution of anumber of different warning levels for the auctions in the pie chart 0062 Therefore by logging into the dashboard the display illustrated in FIG 3 a user can customize his or her view easily by clicking or unclicking fields he or she wishes to view The user can easily see on which dates which auc tions have the most suspicious auctions 0063 FIG 4 is an exemplary second output illustrating presentation of auction data stored in a database according to an embodiment 0064 A dates tab 400 brings up a date entry window 402 which allows the user to enter a date range for data to be display
30. lary flowchart illustrating a method of making nominal bids in an auction in order to extract seller data according to an embodiment 0095 The method can start with operation 800 which crawls auctions This can be done as described herein or as known in the art Each auction on each page can be clicked by the robot to retrieve further detailed information about the auction which can all then be stored in a database 0096 From operation 800 the method can continue to operation 802 which determines whether an auction is encountered which the seller data is needed If the database already has information on this seller for example by making a bid on another one of the seller s auctions then the seller data would not be needed again However 1f the additional seller data that would be ascertained by making a bid is not available in the database and it is determined that the seller is relevant to the user then the seller data would be needed If the seller is selling a product not related to any products of the user of the system then there would probably be no reason for the system to need more detailed seller information How ever if the seller is selling products related or relevant to the user of the system then the seller data would likely be needed 0097 If the seller data is needed then the method can proceed to operation 804 which places a nominal bid on the auction This can be done automatically by the robot by vi
31. n contains a price signifi cantly below a market value and the seller has a large quantity of the items e g greater than a predetermined amount then while none or one of these conditions may not trigger a shut down having both present can trigger shut down status Alternatively any auction that is given a high warning level as described herein can be destined for shut down Or spe cial rules can be applied to auctions for shut down as opposed to the other rules to determine which warning level a particu lar auction should get since a very high confidence level should be required if an auction is going to be shut down 0081 From operation 602 the method can proceed to operation 604 which determines whether human authoriza tion is needed to request shut down of the auction s Whether this is required or not would just be based on the rules being followed by the user The user can set these rules in any manner the user wishes 0082 If human authorization is not needed the method can proceed to operation 606 which can automatically com municate with the respective auction site of each offending auction auction targeted to be shut down all of the informa tion that each auction site would need to shut down each auction Auction sites can have an automated procedure whereby merchants can electronically communicate infor mation in order for the auction sites to shut down or suspend a particular auction The information may c
32. omprises the auc tion number and a reason why the auction should be sus pended Once an auction is shut down it is then up to the seller of the auction to resolve the issue with the auction site 0083 If the determination in operation 604 determines that human authorization is needed to request shut down of the auctions then the method can proceed to operation 608 which allows a user to manually review each auction ina shut down list determined in operation 602 so the user can indicate which auctions should be requested to be shut down and which should not This extra level of review can help reduce erroneous shut down requests 0084 In addition to using the information in the seller s auction to determine the appropriate warning level additional information can be used as well For example information about the seller s prior auctions can be used information about the seller itself can be used or even information about other seller names that might but not known be the seller itself using a different name and their auctions can be used 0085 For example sellers of counterfeit goods may use multiple names on an e commerce site in order to avoid detection or to not arouse attention Some manufacturers may place restrictions on bulk sales of their products If a pur chaser buys a particular brand of jeans and decides for what ever reason they want to sell them online the manufacturer typically does not mind However a m
33. other transactions in the sales data 17 The method as recited in claim 10 wherein the apply ing compares a price of the first online sale offer to prices of similar or identical goods in other transactions in the addi tional sales data 18 The method as recited in claim 10 wherein the e com merce site is an online auction site US 2008 0262960 A1 Oct 23 2008 9 19 A computer implemented method to retrieve auction automatically placing a nominal bid on an item for auction data the method comprising in the individual auction automatically visiting an online auction site and automati receiving additional seller data from the online auction site and cally retrieving individual auction data for an individual sane storing the additional seller data in the database auction sis n i 20 The method as recited in claim 19 wherein the seller is ascertaining a seller of the individual auction identified by the seller s username on the online auction site determining that the seller is not in a database storing auction data kok ko
34. pective warning level the seller s current auction may be assigned 0056 A warning level column 310 lists a warning level or tag or flag indicating a level of suspicion of each respective auction Each different warning level can be color coded For example dark grey might indicate highly suspicious while light grey can indicate slightly suspicious or very light grey can indicate no suspicion 0057 Any individual auction listed in the individual auc tion window can be selected by the user which can bring up additional more detailed information about that particular auction For example Table I below illustrates a sample out put of more detailed auction information that can be dis played about an individual auction Note that the image files an also be displayed Of course any other information an auction site maintains and makes available to users can be stored and displayed as well TABLE I Seller username megaseller123 Seller feedback rating four stars excellent Short item description ACME laptop computer model XZ 223 Current bid 30 Auction started 4 3 2007 3 23 pm Auction closes in 23 hours Reserve none Seller address 4 oak street Beverly hills CA 90210 Seller phone 800 555 1234 Long item description ACME laptop computer with 20G hard drive 400 Mhz processor 15 LCD lots of software rarely used Image files laptop223 jpg Warning level low Status indicator 1 auction
35. rtually clicking the respective buttons in the web browser and entering the bid amount e g 0 01 If an auction has a reserve price then placing a nominal bid may not be possible and to place a bid at the reserve price might not be ideal because the robot may then be forced to purchase the item if nobody outbids it 0098 From operation 804 the method can proceed to operation 806 which retrieves the additional seller informa tion and now made available and stored it in the database The seller information can now be available so that other auctions by the same seller do not need to be bid on again 0099 Ina further embodiment auctions can also have a status indicator indicating a status of a user s manual review of that auction Table II below illustrates a sample set of status indicators which can all be associated with each auction in the database TABLE II Indicator signifies 1 auction has not yet been reviewed 2 auction reviewed no further action taken 3 auction reviewed some action taken e g forwarded for internal investigation 4 auction reported 5 auction removed 0100 The indicator number simply represents a particular letter color and or appearance that can appear in a status column not pictured in FIGS 3 4 that can appear alongside anauction in the auction list displayed see FIGS 3 4 and or can appear when a more detailed view of an auction is dis played Note that the status indicator is different from a
36. s parse and analyze that data to identify particular auctions which may involve particular kinds of conduct 0004 2 Description of the Related Art 0005 Online auctions and other e commerce sites online are a major avenue that many companies and individuals currently use to sell their products Many illegal or undesir able activities are currently taking place on these sites Some examples of such activity are selling counterfeit or grey mar ket goods selling items in bulk in violation of manufacturer restrictions and other activities 0006 Merchants whose products are being sold on online auctions and other e commerce sites have a clear interest in protecting their products from any activity that may ulti mately hurt their company and potentially their loyal cus tomers users as well Merchants that wish to police online commerce sites for undesirable activities relating to their products face a daunting task especially since there are many major online commerce sites currently in operation 0007 What is needed is an easy way for a merchant to monitor and address undesirable sales of their products or counterfeit products on such online commerce sites Once prohibited sales are identified then further measures can be taken to shut down the particular sales SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 0008 It is an aspect of the present inventive concept to provide an apparatus method and computer readable storage medium to monitor and an
37. s histograms pie charts etc 0071 From operation 504 the method can proceed to operation 506 which displays the tabulated data to the user Once displayed the user can refine his or her preferences e g return to operation 500 or perform further functional ity on the display such as clicking individual auctions to bring up more detailed auction information 0072 Inan embodiment auctions can be shut down Auc tion sites such as E BAY have a mechanism wherein a party that feels an auction is in violation of their rights e g infringes upon trademark rights counterfeit goods etc can send the auction site an electronic communication so that the auction site can shut down the auction The auctioneer will receive a communication from the auction site saying that their auction has been shut down and why The auctioneer will then typically have the opportunity to defend themselves to the auction site and explain why their auction was not in violation of any rule or law If an auction was shut down erroneously the auction can be restarted and there shouldn t be any damages since the down time the auctioneer faced was brief 0073 Rules applied to either determine whether an auc tion should be targeted for shut down or to determine an appropriate warning level can be set by the users and admin isters of the software A flexible and scalable rules system can be applied to allow for application of rules which encompass a large ran
38. sent inventive con cept can automatically visit the e ray auction site and retrieve summaries about all of the auctions that are selling ACME widgets This can be accomplished by visiting the e ray site using a robot user automatically entering in a search query for ACME and widget and then gathering all of the results using techniques such as screen scraping or html parsing The results can then be stored in a database such as an SQL based database Each individual auction can contain a summary in the database which comprises some or all of the information that the e ray site had about it Such information can be for example sellers name and info item name seller s address price item description bidders and their history etc 0029 Now the database contains auction data comprising summaries of all auctions that the robot found which are for ACME widgets This data can now be analyzed according to a set of rules to determine which if any of these auctions are selling or likely to be selling counterfeit widgets The coun terfeit widget auctions may be identified in number of man ners For example if a price of the widget is well below a market value then it may be likely that the widget is coun terfeit If a previously identified seller of counterfeit goods is selling the widget then it also may be likely that the widget is counterfeit If there is text in the item description that can not be an accurate des
39. some cases e commerce servers can be contacted to shut down particular offending auctions The e commerce server communication interface 116 can communicate with any e commerce server e g 100 102 104 or others in order to request particular auctions to be shut down Thus can be done automatically or upon manual request by the user 0042 It is noted that the components in FIG 1 are illus trated in one particular arrangement however it can be appre ciated that the operations described herein and the respective hardware used to implement those operations can be arranged in numerous other configurations as well For example the entire system can run on a single computer thus the indi vidual blocks may not actually exist separately or multiple computers processors can implement different operations therein A single database 110 can be used to store any data needed by the system or multiple databases can be used Oct 23 2008 Components can be located physically together or in different locations connected by any kind of computer communica tions network 0043 FIG 2 is a flowchart illustrating an exemplary method of extracting data from e commerce systems and storing them according to an embodiment 0044 The method can start with operation 200 which visits an e commerce site This is typically done using an automated robot A URL is automatically entered into a web browser real or virtual which visits the e commerce si
40. t can be an e commerce site that specializes in selling tickets In such markets rel evant information which can trigger higher or lower alerts can be for example a a particular section row and or seat numbers of interest b particular pricing trends e g price changes in fashion that is of interest 0075 Pricing behavior may also be another rule that may be indicative of undesirable behavior For example a change in price more than a certain percent with respect to a particular item or set of items might be relevant information For example a seller lowering his or her price may be indicative that the seller is purchasing his or her goods from another seller that may have also lowered their prices 0076 Other relevant information that should be reviewed relate to general intelligence For example item descriptions can be reviewed to see if they contain particular trademarks which may be a trademark violation 0077 The present inventive concept can request that an auction site shut down particular auctions in two ways In a first the system can automatically flag suspicious auctions that have a level of irregularity higher than a predetermined threshold These auctions can automatically be communi cated to the auction site that will then shut them down The automatic method does run the risk that some auctions that aren t doing anything wrong may be shut down erroneously Ina second method the system can generate a list of a
41. te actually communicates with the site s respective server or host 0045 From operation 200 the method can proceed to operation 202 which performs a search on the e commerce site This can for example be a keyword search Alternatively an actual search may not be performed but instead the robot would know which links to click to achieve a particular list ing For example a site may allow a user to navigate a series of menus or links to pull up a list of real estate for auction without actually having to type in anything 0046 From operation 204 the method can proceed to operation 204 which retrieves results from the search This can be done by screen scraping or actually retrieving the html data that is intended to be displayed on the robot s browser The html data actually contains the text describing all of the auction information and any links to image files which can also be retrieved and stored in the auction summary 0047 From operation 204 the method can proceed to operation 206 which analyzes the result according to preset rules and associated a result of the analysis with a relevance code The relevance code or tag can be associated with the auction summary in the database e g by having a field in the record for a possible relevance code 0048 From operation 206 the method can proceed to operation 208 which determines whether all results have been reviewed If not then the method can return to oper
42. ties he owns or other business associates for the sole purpose of leaving positive feedback 0091 From operation 702 the method can proceed to operation 704 which determines whether suspicious or undesirable activity involving seller has occurred Suspi cious or undesirable activity can be any occurrence based on information external to what is in the seller s auction itself that is indicative ofa higher likelihood of suspicious or unde sirable conduct on the e commerce site 0092 If the determination in operation 704 determines that suspicious or undesirable activity is present then this information can be used when determining a current auction s warning level or whether that auction is to be submitted for shut down 0093 When auction sites are visited by a robot crawler in accordance with the present inventive concept to extract data to add to the database the seller information available to the crawler is limited When visiting particular auction site s it may be the site s policy that the site will release more detailed information about the seller to a bidder Thus it may be desirable to place nominal bids on some auctions not for the purpose of winning an auction but for the purpose of gaining more information about the seller Once a bid is placed more detailed information about the seller is available which can then be captured by the robot and added to the database US 2008 0262960 A1 0094 FIG 8 is an exemp
43. uctions to take down but a user would have to manually review each auction summary and decide whether to submit the auction to the auction site for takedown Since human intervention is required this method would reduce the amount of erroneous auction shut down but would also require more human capi tal to review each suspicious auction manually 0078 FIG 6 is a flowchart illustrating an exemplary method of shutting down auctions according to an embodi ment 0079 The method can start with operation 600 which retrieves auction data The auction data contains data about individual auctions This can be done using any method described herein or known in the art 0080 From operation 600 the method can proceed to operation 602 which applies rules to the auction data to identify auctions qualifying for shut down The rules would identify characteristics of an irregular auction and can bet set to trigger an identification for shut down upon meeting of several conditions For example if an individual auction con tains an item description that would be a certainty that it is a counterfeit item e g selling a type of designer product that the actual designer does not make then based on this char acteristic only this auction can be identified for shut down Alternatively if other conditions are met that indicate a sus US 2008 0262960 A1 picious auction then the auction can be identified for shut down For example if the auctio
Download Pdf Manuals
Related Search