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The usefulness, and consequently the performance, of advertisements are improved by allowing businesses to better target their ads to a responsive audience. Location information is determined (or simply accepted) and used. For example, location information may be used in a relevancy determination of an ad. As another example, location information may be used in an attribute (e.g., position) arbitration. Such location information may be associated with price information, such as a maximum price bid. Such location information may be associated with ad performance information. Ad performance information may be tracked on the basis of location information. The content of an ad creative, and/or of a landing page may be selected and/or modified using location information. Finally, tools, such as user interfaces, may be provided to allow a business to enter and/or modify location information, such as location information used for targeting and location-dependent price information. The location information used to target and/or score ads may be, include, or define an area. The area may be defined by at least one geographic reference point (e.g., defined by latitude and longitude coordinates) and perhaps additional information. Thus, the area may be a circle defined by a geographic reference point and a radius, an ellipse defined by two geographic reference points and a distance sum, or a polygon defined by three or more geographic reference points, for example.
This application is a continuation-in-part of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/654,265, titled “DETERMINING AND/OR USING LOCATION INFORMATION IN AN AD SYSTEM,” filed on Sep. 3, 2003 and listing Leslie Yeh, Sridhar Ramaswamy and Zhe Qian as inventors. That application is incorporated herein by reference.
The present invention concerns advertising. In particular, the present invention concerns improving advertising using location information.
Advertisers have developed several strategies in an attempt to maximize the value of such advertising. In one strategy, advertisers use popular presences or means for providing interactive media or services (referred to as “Websites” in the specification without loss of generality) as conduits to reach a large audience. Using this first approach, an advertiser may place ads on the home page of the New York Times Website, or the USA Today Website, for example. In another strategy, an advertiser may attempt to target its ads to more narrow niche audiences, thereby increasing the likelihood of a positive response by the audience. For example, an agency promoting tourism in the Costa Rican rainforest might place ads on the ecotourism-travel subdirectory of the Yahoo Website. An advertiser will normally determine such targeting manually.
Regardless of the strategy, Website-based ads (also referred to as “Web ads”) are often presented to their advertising audience in the form of “banner ads”—i.e., a rectangular box that includes graphic components. When a member of the advertising audience (referred to as a “viewer” or “user” in the Specification without loss of generality) selects one of these banner ads by clicking on it, embedded hypertext links typically direct the viewer to the advertiser's Website. This process, wherein the viewer selects an ad, is commonly referred to as a “click-through” (“Click-through” is intended to cover any user selection.). The ratio of the number of click-throughs to the number of impressions of the ad (i.e., the number of times an ad is displayed or otherwise rendered) is commonly referred to as the “click-through rate” or “CTR” of the ad.
A “conversion” is said to occur when a user consummates a transaction related to a previously served ad. What constitutes a conversion may vary from case to case and can be determined in a variety of ways. For example, it may be the case that a conversion occurs when a user clicks on an ad, is referred to the advertiser's Web page, and consummates a purchase there before leaving that Web page. Alternatively, a conversion may be defined as a user being shown an ad, and making a purchase on the advertiser's Web page within a predetermined time (e.g., seven days). In yet another alternative, a conversion may be defined by an advertiser to be any measurable/observable user action such as, for example, downloading a white paper, navigating to at least a given depth of a Website, viewing at least a certain number of Web pages, spending at least a predetermined amount of time on a Website or Web page, etc. Often, if user actions don't indicate a consummated purchase, they may indicate a sales lead, although user actions constituting a conversion are not limited to this. Indeed, many other definitions of what constitutes a conversion are possible. The ratio of the number of conversions to the number of impressions of the ad (i.e., the number of times an ad is displayed or otherwise rendered) is commonly referred to as the conversion rate. If a conversion is defined to be able to occur within a predetermined time since the serving of an ad, one possible definition of the conversion rate might only consider ads that have been served more than the predetermined time in the past.
The hosts of Websites on which the ads are presented (referred to as “Website hosts” or “ad consumers”) have the challenge of maximizing ad revenue without impairing their users' experience. Some Website hosts have chosen to place advertising revenues over the interests of users. One such Website is “Overture.com,” which hosts a so-called “search engine” service returning advertisements masquerading as “search results” in response to user queries. The Overture.com Website permits advertisers to pay to position an ad for their Website (or a target Website) higher up on the list of purported search results. If such schemes where the advertiser only pays if a user clicks on the ad (i.e., cost-per-click) are implemented, the advertiser lacks incentive to target their ads effectively, since a poorly targeted ad will not be clicked and therefore will not require payment. Consequently, high cost-per-click ads show up near or at the top, but do not necessarily translate into real revenue for the ad publisher because viewers don't click on them. Furthermore, ads that viewers would click on are further down the list, or not on the list at all, and so relevancy of ads is compromised.
Search engines, such as Google for example, have enabled advertisers to target their ads so that they will be rendered in conjunction with a search results page responsive to a query that is relevant, presumably, to the ad. Although search result pages afford advertisers a great opportunity to target their ads to a more receptive audience, search result pages are merely a fraction of page views of the World Wide Web.
Some online advertising systems may use ad relevance information and document content relevance information (e.g., concepts or topics, feature vectors, etc.) to “match” ads to (and/or to score ads with respect to) a document including content, such as a Web page for example.
The foregoing ad serving systems can be thought of as keyword-targeted systems (where ads are targeted using terms found in a search query) and content-targeted systems (where ads are targeted using content of a document). Although keyword-targeted and content-targeted ad systems have improved the usefulness of ads, and consequently their performance (e.g., in terms of click-through rate, conversion rate, etc.), there is still plenty of room for improvement. Such improvement can be expected with better targeting.
The Google keyword ad server allows advertisers to specify (e.g., for purposes of targeting) one or more countries in which their ad may be served. This permits ads to be served to particular users who presumably speak and understand a particular language. Unfortunately, however, many businesses have only a regional or local reach. For example, a restaurant may want to target ads only to potential customers within a 30 minute drive. A dry cleaner may want to target ads only to potential customers in the same town, and perhaps a few neighboring towns. As another example, a regional chain of drug stores may only want to target ads to potential customers living within their region. Even if such businesses have ads that are relevant to a search query or a Web page, if the end user viewing a search results Web page or the content of a Web page is outside the geographic reach of their business, the ads will not be very useful and will not perform well. If ads only generate revenue (e.g., for a content owner or ad system) when they perform well (e.g., if they are selected), such ads will generate little, if any, revenue.
Such businesses often advertise in local papers and the telephone book yellow pages. While such conduits for advertisements are useful, they are limited. Such businesses may also advertise on local Websites, but this requires the business to find local Websites, and to track and manage advertising on each of the Websites.
In view of the foregoing, there is a need for improving the usefulness, and consequently the performance, of advertisements. In particular, there is a need to allow businesses to better target their ads to a responsive audience.
The present invention improves the usefulness, and consequently the performance, of advertisements. The present invention allows businesses to better target their ads to a responsive audience. The present invention may do so by determining and using location information, such as country, region, metro area, city or town, postal zip code, telephone area code, etc.
The present invention may also use location information when determining a relevancy score of an ad.
The present invention may also use location information in an attribute (e.g., position) arbitration. Such location information may be associated with price information, such as a maximum price bid. Such location information may be associated with ad performance information.
The present invention may also track ad performance information on the basis of location information.
The present invention may select or modify the content of an ad creative, and/or of a landing page using location information. For example, location information may be inserted into an ad creative. As another example, different landing pages with different content can be used for different locations.
The present invention may also provide tools, such as user interfaces, to allow a business to enter and/or modify location information, such as location information used for targeting and location-dependent price information.
FIG. 1 is a high-level diagram showing parties or entities that can interact with an advertising system.
FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating an environment in which, or with which, the present invention may operate.
FIG. 3 is a bubble diagram illustrating various operations that may be performed, and various information that may be used and/or generated, by the present invention.
FIG. 4 illustrates exemplary request information that is consistent with the present invention.
FIG. 5 illustrates exemplary ad information that is consistent with the present invention.
FIG. 6 is a flow diagram of an exemplary method for performing an ad selection operation in a manner consistent with the present invention.
FIG. 7 is a flow diagram of an exemplary method for performing a scoring operation in a manner consistent with the present invention.
FIG. 8 is a flow diagram of an exemplary method for performing an ad modification operation in a manner consistent with the present invention.
FIG. 9 is a flow diagram of an exemplary method of performing user behavior feedback operations in a manner consistent with the present invention.
FIG. 10 is a flow diagram of an exemplary method for performing ad information entry and/or management operations in a manner consistent with the present invention.
FIG. 11 is a block diagram of an exemplary apparatus that may perform various operations in a manner consistent with the present invention.
The present invention may involve novel methods, apparatus, message formats, and/or data structures for obtaining and using geolocation information in an ad system. The following description is presented to enable one skilled in the art to make and use the invention, and is provided in the context of particular applications and their requirements. Various modifications to the disclosed embodiments will be apparent to those skilled in the art, and the general principles set forth below may be applied to other embodiments and applications. Thus, the present invention is not intended to be limited to the embodiments shown and the inventors regard their invention as any patentable subject matter described.
In the following, environments in which, or with which, the present invention may operate are described in § 4.1. Then, exemplary embodiments of the present invention are described in § 4.2. Finally, some conclusions regarding the present invention are set forth in § 4.3.
FIG. 1 is a high level diagram of an advertising environment. The environment may include an ad entry, maintenance and delivery system (simply referred to as an ad server) 120. Advertisers 110 may directly, or indirectly, enter, maintain, and track ad information in the system 120. The ads may be in the form of graphical ads such as so-called banner ads, text only ads, image ads, audio ads, video ads, ads combining one of more of any of such components, etc. The ads may also include embedded information, such as a link, and/or machine executable instructions. Ad consumers 130 may submit requests for ads to, accept ads responsive to their request from, and provide usage information to, the system 120. An entity other than an ad consumer 130 may initiate a request for ads. Although not shown, other entities may provide usage information (e.g., whether or not a conversion or click-through related to the ad occurred) to the system 120. This usage information may include measured or observed user behavior related to ads that have been served.
The ad server 120 may be similar to the one described in FIG. 2 of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/375,900 (incorporated herein by reference), entitled “SERVING ADVERTISEMENTS BASED ON CONTENT,” filed on Feb. 26, 2003 and listing Darrell Anderson, Paul Bucheit, Alex Carobus, Claire Cui, Jeffrey A. Dean, Georges R. Harik, Deepak Jindal, and Narayanan Shivakumar as inventors. An advertising program may include information concerning accounts, campaigns, creatives, targeting, etc. The term “account” relates to information for a given advertiser (e.g., a unique e-mail address, a password, billing information, etc.). A “campaign” or “ad campaign” refers to one or more groups of one or more advertisements, and may include a start date, an end date, budget information, geo-targeting information, syndication information, etc. For example, Honda may have one advertising campaign for its automotive line, and a separate advertising campaign for its motorcycle line. The campaign for its automotive line have one or more ad groups, each containing one or more ads. Each ad group may include targeting information (e.g., a set of keywords, a set of one or more topics, etc.), and price information (e.g., maximum cost (cost per click-though, cost per conversion, etc.)). Alternatively, or in addition, each ad group may include an average cost (e.g., average cost per click-through, average cost per conversion, etc.). Therefore, a single maximum cost and/or a single average cost may be associated with one or more keywords, and/or topics. As stated, each ad group may have one or more ads or “creatives” (That is, ad content that is ultimately rendered to an end user.). Each ad may also include a link to a URL (e.g., a landing Web page, such as the home page of an advertiser, or a Web page associated with a particular product or server). Consistent with the present invention, the ad information may include geolocation targeting information, geolocation performance information, and/or geolocation price information Naturally, the ad information may include more or less information, and may be organized in a number of different ways.
FIG. 2 illustrates an environment 200 in which the present invention may be used. A user device (also referred to as a “client” or “client device”) 250 may include a browser facility (such as the Explorer browser from Microsoft, the Opera Web Browser from Opera Software of Norway, the Navigator browser from AOL/Time Warner, etc.), an e-mail facility (e.g., Outlook from Microsoft), etc. A search engine 220 may permit user devices 250 to search collections of documents (e.g., Web pages). A content server 210 may permit user devices 250 to access documents. An e-mail server (such as Hotmail from Microsoft Network, Yahoo Mail, etc.) 240 may be used to provide e-mail functionality to user devices 250. An ad server 210 may be used to serve ads to user devices 250. The ads may be served in association with search results provided by the search engine 220. However, content-relevant ads may be served in association with content provided by the content server 230, and/or e-mail supported by the e-mail server 240 and/or user device e-mail facilities.
As discussed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/375,900 (introduced above), ads may be targeted to documents served by content servers. Thus, one example of an ad consumer 130 is a general content server 230 that receives requests for documents (e.g., articles, discussion threads, music, video, graphics, search results, Web page listings, etc.), and retrieves the requested document in response to, or otherwise services, the request. The content server may submit a request for ads to the ad server 120/210. Such an ad request may include a number of ads desired. The ad request may also include document request information. This information may include the document itself (e.g., page), a category or topic corresponding to the content of the document or the document request (e.g., arts, business, computers, arts-movies, arts-music, etc.), part or all of the document request, content age, content type (e.g., text, graphics, video, audio, mixed media, etc.), geo-location information, document information, etc. Consistent with the present invention, the request may also include geolocation information, such as location information about an end user that submitted a search query.
The content server 230 may combine the requested document with one or more of the advertisements provided by the ad server 120/210. This combined information including the document content and advertisement(s) is then forwarded towards the end user device 250 that requested the document, for presentation to the user. Finally, the content server 230 may transmit information about the ads and how, when, and/or where (such as geolocation information) the ads are to be rendered (e.g., position, click-through or not, impression time, impression date, size, conversion or not, etc.) back to the ad server 120/210. Alternatively, or in addition, such information may be provided back to the ad server 120/210 by some other means. Consistent with the present invention, the ad server 120/210 may store ad performance information on the basis of geolocation information.
Another example of an ad consumer 130 is the search engine 220. A search engine 220 may receive queries for search results. In response, the search engine may retrieve relevant search results (e.g., from an index of Web pages). An exemplary search engine is described in the article S. Brin and L. Page, “The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Search Engine,” Seventh International World Wide Web Conference, Brisbane, Australia and in U.S. Pat. No. 6,285,999 (both incorporated herein by reference). Such search results may include, for example, lists of Web page titles, snippets of text extracted from those Web pages, and hypertext links to those Web pages, and may be grouped into a predetermined number of (e.g., ten) search results.
The search engine 220 may submit a request for ads to the ad server 120/210. The request may include a number of ads desired. This number may depend on the search results, the amount of screen or page space occupied by the search results, the size and shape of the ads, etc. In one embodiment, the number of desired ads will be from one to ten, and preferably from three to five. The request for ads may also include the query (as entered or parsed), information based on the query (such as geolocation information, whether the query came from an affiliate and an identifier of such an affiliate), and/or information associated with, or based on, the search results. Such information may include, for example, identifiers related to the search results (e.g., document identifiers or “docIDs”), scores related to the search results (e.g., information retrieval (“IR”) scores such as dot products of feature vectors corresponding to a query and a document, Page Rank scores, and/or combinations of IR scores and Page Rank scores), snippets of text extracted from identified documents (e.g., Web pages), full text of identified documents, topics of identified documents, feature vectors of identified documents, etc. Consistent with the present invention, the request may also include geolocation information, such as location information about an end user that submitted a search query.
The search engine 220 may combine the search results with one or more of the advertisements provided by the ad server 120/210. This combined information including the search results and advertisement(s) is then forwarded towards the user that submitted the search, for presentation to the user. Preferably, the search results are maintained as distinct from the ads, so as not to confuse the user between paid advertisements and presumably neutral search results.
Finally, the search engine 220 may transmit information about the ad and when, where (e.g., geolocation), and/or how the ad was to be rendered (e.g., position, click-through or not, impression time, impression date, size, conversion or not, etc.) back to the ad server 120/210. Alternatively, or in addition, such information may be provided back to the ad server 120/210 by some other means. Consistent with the present invention, the ad server 120/210 may store ad performance information on the basis of geolocation information.
Finally, the e-mail server 240 may be thought of, generally, as a content server in which a document served is simply an e-mail. Further, e-mail applications (such as Microsoft Outlook for example) may be used to send and/or receive e-mail. Therefore, an e-mail server 240 or application may be thought of as an ad consumer 130. Thus, e-mails may be thought of as documents, and targeted ads may be served in association with such documents. For example, one or more ads may be served in, under over, or otherwise in association with an e-mail.
Although the foregoing examples described servers as (i) requesting ads, and (ii) combining them with content, one or both of these operations may be performed by a client device (such as an end user computer for example).
“Geolocation information” may include information specifying one or more of one or more countries, one or more (inter-country) regions, one or more states, one or more metro areas, one or more cities, one or more towns, one or more boroughs, one or more areas with common zip codes, one or more areas with common telephone area codes, one or more areas served by common cable head end stations, one or more areas served by common network access points or nodes, one or more geographic areas defined by some other means, etc. It may include latitude and/or longitude, or a range thereof. Thus, for example, it may be or include an area defined by a geographic reference point and perhaps some additional information, such as a circular area of a defined radius about a point defined by latitude and longitude coordinates for example. As another example, it may be an area defined by three or more geographic reference points, such as a triangle, rectangle, pentagon, or some other polygon defined by a number of geographic reference points for example. It may include information, such as an IP address, from which a user location can be estimated.
Online ads, such as those used in the exemplary systems described above with reference to FIGS. 1 and 2, or any other system, may have various intrinsic features. Such features may be specified by an application and/or an advertiser. These features are referred to as “ad features” below. For example, in the case of a text ad, ad features may include a title line, ad text, and an embedded link. In the case of an image ad, ad features may include images, executable code, and an embedded link. Depending on the type of online ad, ad features may include one or more of the following: text, a link, an audio file, a video file, an image file, executable code, embedded information, etc.
When an online ad is served, one or more parameters may be used to describe how, when, and/or where the ad was served. These parameters are referred to as “serving parameters” below. Serving parameters may include, for example, one or more of the following: features of (including information on) a page on which the ad was served, a search query or search results associated with the serving of the ad, a user characteristic (e.g., their geolocation, the language used by the user, the type of browser used, previous page views, previous behavior), a host or affiliate site (e.g., America Online, Google, Yahoo) that initiated the request, an absolute position of the ad on the page on which it was served, a position (spatial or temporal) of the ad relative to other ads served, an absolute size of the ad, a size of the ad relative to other ads, a color of the ad, a number of other ads served, types of other ads served, time of day served, time of week served, time of year served, etc. Naturally, there are other serving parameters that may be used in the context of the invention.
Although serving parameters may be extrinsic to ad features, they may be associated with an ad as serving conditions or constraints. When used as serving conditions or constraints, such serving parameters are referred to simply as “serving constraints” (or “targeting criteria”). For example, in some systems, an advertiser may be able to target the serving of its ad by specifying that it is only to be served on weekdays, no lower than a certain position, only to users in a certain geolocation, etc. As another example, in some systems, an advertiser may specify that its ad is to be served only if a page or search query includes certain keywords or phrases. As yet another example, in some systems, an advertiser may specify that its ad is to be served only if a document being served includes certain topics or concepts, or falls under a particular cluster or clusters, or some other classification or classifications.
“Document information” may include any information included in the document, information derivable from information included in the document (referred to as “document derived information”), and/or information related to the document (referred to as “document related information”), as well as an extensions of such information (e.g., information derived from related information). An example of document derived information is a classification based on textual content of a document. Examples of document related information include document information from other documents with links to the instant document, as well as document information from other documents to which the instant document links.
Content from a document may be rendered on a “content rendering application or device”. Examples of content rendering applications include an Internet browser (e.g., Explorer or Netscape), a media player (e.g., an MP3 player, a Realnetworks streaming audio file player, etc.), a viewer (e.g., an Abobe Acrobat pdf reader), etc.
A “content owner” is a person or entity that has some property right in the content of a document. A content owner may be an author of the content. In addition, or alternatively, a content owner may have rights to reproduce the content, rights to prepare derivative works of the content, rights to display or perform the content publicly, and/or other proscribed rights in the content. Although a content server might be a content owner in the content of the documents it serves, this is not necessary.
“User information” may include user behavior information and/or user profile information. It may also include a user's geolocation, or an estimation of the user's geolocation.
Various exemplary embodiments of the present invention are now described in § 4.2.
FIG. 3 is a bubble diagram illustrating various operations that may be performed by the present invention, and various information that may be used and/or generated by the present invention. An ad selection operation 310 may be used to generate a set of ads 340 using ad information 330 and request information 320. In an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, the set of ads 340 may include ads relevant to the request information 320. For example, if the request information 320 is associated with a search query, the ads 340 may be relevant to terms of the search query. Alternatively, if the request information 320 is associated with a document to be served, the ads 340 may be relevant to content of the document. In any event, the request information 320 may include geolocation information. For example, the request information 320 may include geolocation of an end user that submitted a search query or document request (or some other entity, such as a cable head end, a network access point, etc., associated with the request), or information from which such geolocation information can be derived. Exemplary data structures that may be used to store request information 320 and ad information 330 are described in § 4.2.1 below with reference to FIGS. 4 and 5, respectively. Exemplary methods that may be used to perform the ad selection operation 310 are described in § 4.2.2 below with reference to FIG. 6.
Still referring to FIG. 3, a scoring operation 350 may be used to generate a set 360 of ads and associated scores using the first set 340 of ads and ad information 330. The scoring operation 350 may consider geolocation information, such as geolocation performance information, and/or geolocation price information for example, of the ads. Exemplary methods that may be used to perform the scoring operation 350 are described in § 4.2.2 below with reference to FIG. 7.
Ad modification operations 370 may be used to generate a set 380 of ads with location specific creative content, and/or a location specific landing page from the set 360 of ads. Although not shown, the ad modification operations 370 may use geolocation information. Exemplary methods that may be used to perform the ad modification operations 370 are described in § 4.2.2 below with reference to FIG. 8.
The ad information 330 may include geolocation-based performance information. Such information may be provided, and/or tracked by user behavior feedback operations 390. Exemplary methods that may be used to perform the user behavior feedback operations are described in § 4.2.2 below with reference to FIG. 9.
Finally, the ad information 330 may include geolocation targeting, and/or geolocation price information. This information may be entered and/or modified by advertisers, or their representatives via ad information entry and/or management operations 335. Exemplary methods that may be used to perform these operations 335 are described in § 4.2.2 below with reference to FIG. 10.
The present invention need not provide, and/or use all of the operations and information described with reference to FIG. 3. The present invention need not perform the operations in the order shown. Finally, the present invention may combine, or separate functionality described with respect to the various operations. For example, the selection and scoring operations 310 and 350 may be combined into a single operation.
FIG. 4 illustrates exemplary ad request information 320′ that is consistent with the present invention. The ad request information 320′ may include information such as that described in § 4.1.1 above. Further, the ad request information may include end user (or some other entity, simply referred to as “end user” in the specification) geolocation information, or information from which end user geolocation can be derived or estimated. For example, the end user geolocation information may include one or more of a country, a region (e.g., pacific coast, north-east, mid-Atlantic, south-west, etc.), a state, a metro area (e.g., San Francisco Bay Area, Metro District of Columbia Area, etc.), a city, a town, a postal zip code, a telephone area code, etc.
The geolocation information may be encoded in various ways. For example, a country identifier may be a two character code such as those determined by the International Organization for Standardization (“ISO”). The region identifier may be a six character code such as those determined by UTF8. Thus, the country and region can be encoded using the ISO 3166-2/1999 standard which is a two letter country code followed by a “-” and 1-3 alphanumeric characters. The ISO 3166-2/1999 standard code can be mapped to a numerical identifier (e.g., in the range of 20001-30000). New regions can be assigned a numerical identifier appended to the end. In one embodiment of the present invention, more than 200 countries and 1300 regions are uniquely identified. The metro area identifier may be based on the DMA standard. In one embodiment, metro areas can cross state lines. Accordingly, in such an embodiment, a metro area is not necessarily “contained” within a state. Since the same city or town name can be used for different cities or towns in different states, such information should be used in combination with state information to avoid ambiguity. Postal zip codes can be encoded as a 5-digit integer, or extended with 4 or more digits. Telephone area codes may be encoded as a three-digit integer. Other ways of encoding geolocation information are possible.
The present invention may be used to derive or estimate geolocation information from other information. For example, the present invention may use known techniques (such as that used by the “NetAcuity” product from Digital Envoy of Norcross, Ga.) to map Internet protocol (“IP”) address and/or domain information to geolocation information. As another example, Internet service providers may have many dial-in access servers, each associated with a telephone area code. As yet another example, an end user's location might be inferred from a regional term (e.g., hoagie, hero, grinder, sub) entered by the user. If multiple factors are used to infer geolocation, but lead to inconsistent locations, each without a desired level of confidence, a more general, consistent location, can be used. Alternatively, the present invention may simply accept previously derived or provided geolocation information. For example, the end user, or a client device used by the end user, may have voluntarily provided geolocation information. As another example, the geolocation information may have been derived and provided by a third party.
FIG. 5 illustrates exemplary ad information 330′ that is consistent with the present invention. The ad information 330′ may include information such as that described in § 4.1.1 above. For example, the ad information 330′ may include a unique ad identifier, ad creative content (or a pointer to such creative content), and/or a landing page link, etc. Further, the exemplary ad information 330′ may include at least one of geolocation targeting information and geolocation price information. Geolocation performance information (not shown) may be tracked and associated with the ad.
Geolocation targeting information may include one or more countries, one or more regions, one or more states, one or more metro areas, one or more cities, one or more towns, one or more postal zip codes, and/or one or more telephone area codes, etc. Thus, for example, a business selling irrigation systems can target its ads to the states California, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico, while a business selling snow blowers can target its ads to states, such as Maine and Minnesota for example, with relatively significant snowfall. A dry cleaner can target its ads to the town in which it is located, as well as neighboring towns, and/or various postal zip codes, and/or various telephone area codes. A professional sports team can target ads for tickets and/or merchandise to a metro area. A national shipping company can target its ads to a country. Geolocation targeting information may also be or include an area (or areas) defined by at least one geographic reference point and perhaps some additional information, such as a circular area of a defined radius about a point defined by latitude and longitude coordinates for example, an elliptical area defined by two geographic reference points and a defined distance sum, etc. As another example, geolocation targeting information may be or include an area (or areas) defined by three or more geographic reference points, such as a triangle, rectangle, pentagon, or some other polygon defined by a number of reference points for example.
Geolocation price information may include price information for each of one or more countries, one or more regions, one or more states, one or more metro areas, one or more cities, one or more towns, one or more postal zip codes, and/or one or more telephone area codes, etc. Geolocation price information may also include price information for an area (or areas) defined using at least one geographic reference point and perhaps some additional information. The price information should correspond to the geolocation targeting information.
As will be described in more detail with reference to FIG. 7 below, a scoring operation 350 may weigh more specific geolocation price information more than less specific geolocation price information.
The relevancy of the ad may be determined using keyword targeting information associated with the ad, ad relevance information associated with the ad, etc. In any event, the relevancy of the ad may be determined using, at least, geolocation information of the request and the ad. The more specific the geolocation information that matches, the more relevant, at least in terms of location, the ad is. Thus, for example, if an end user submitted a search query from San Diego, assuming all other relevancy factors are equal, an ad with geotargeting for San Diego may be more relevant than an ad with geotargeting for California, which may be more relevant for an ad with geotargeting for the West Coast, which may be more relevant for an ad with geotargeting for the United States.
Naturally, geolocation targeting may be just one of a number of relevancy factors. For example, ad relevancy may also consider (a) a comparison of ad relevancy information to the content of a document requested, (b) ad keyword targeting with respect to terms of a search query, (c) user demographic information, (d) user behavior information, (e) time/date/season targeting information, etc.
Without geolocation scoring, a simple product score for ad A would be 0.0050 (=0.25*0.02), while that for ad B would be 0.0350 (=0.50*0.07). With geolocation scoring, a simple product score for ad A would be 0.20 (=1.00*0.20), while that for ad B would be 0.01 (=0.50*0.02). Thus, without geolocation information, ad B would score higher than ad A, but with geolocation information ad A would score higher than ad B. For example, ad A may be for a restaurant in San Diego, while ad B might be for a pool construction company with a large presence in Florida. By using geolocation information, the present invention may advantageously serve ad A with some preference over ad B since it may normally be more useful for an end user in San Diego.
In one embodiment of the present invention, if more specific geolocation price information is not available, more general geolocation price information may be used in the determination of a score. Similarly, if more specific geolocation performance information is not available, more general geolocation performance information may be used. Thus, for example, an ad with only geolocation price and performance information for California may compete with an ad with geolocation price and performance information for Sacramento when serving an ad request with Sacramento geolocation information.
Referring back to block 820, the content of an ad creative may be modified by modifying text or by selecting one of a number of candidate texts. For example, assume that an ad request indicated that the end user is in Tampa Fla., and assume that an ad for a Honda Car Dealer was targeted to Tampa Fla. The normal ad creative may read, “Attention Car Buyers . . . Best Prices on Accords . . . Hundreds in Stock.” The modified ad creative may read, “Attention Tampa Car Buyers . . . Best Prices on Accords in Tampa.” The geolocation information may simply be added to, or replace a portion of, the ad creative. The geolocation information may be used to select a number of candidate ad creatives.
Alternative or in addition to generating creative content targeted towards a specific location (e.g., “Find this at Office Depot on San Antonio Road/El Camino”), advertisement attributes may be determined using location information. For example, pricing can be determined using “local” competition, local demographics (e.g. income by zip code), or local buying habits. Prices and/or products may be specific to a location (e.g. a query for “NYC” yields an ad “Fly to JFK from SFO for $199”).
Thus, by using geolocation information, the present invention can be used to adapt a marketing message to the location of an end user to perceive the ad.
FIG. 9 is a flow diagram of an exemplary method 390′ for performing user behavior feedback operation 390 in a manner consistent with the present invention. Recall from scoring operation 350 that geolocation specific performance information may be used in determining a score for an ad. The method 390′ of FIG. 9 is one way to track such information. Each time an ad is served, this event may be identified by a unique process identifier (e.g., ad server IP address, a date and a time of day). The process identifier may be associated with any geolocation targeting information used when serving the ad, or geolocation information of the relevant request. The ad may be served with its process identifier. (Block 910) As indicated by event block 920, different branches of the method 390′ may be performed in response to different events. For example, if user behavior information is received, the received user behavior information is associated with the process identifier (and therefore the geolocation information, if any, used when originally serving the ad) (Block 930) before the method 390′ branches back to event block 920. If a condition for updating performance information is met (e.g., the receipt of performance information, the receipt of a certain amount of performance information, a time expiration since the last update, an absolute time/date, etc), the ad performance information is updated considering geolocation targeting information, or geolocation request information associated with the ad serving process (Block 940), before the method 390′ branches back to event block 920.
Thus, the method 390′ can be used to track ad performance information accounting for geolocation information that may have been used when serving the ad. Various alternative ways of associating geolocation information with performance information are possible.
FIG. 10 is a flow diagram of an exemplary method 335′ of performing ad information entry and/or management operations in a manner consistent with the present invention. Recall from FIG. 5 that ad information 330′ may include one or more of geolocation targeting information and geolocation price information. The method 330′ accepts authorized and/or authenticated user input. (Block 1010) As indicated by event block 1020, various branches of the method 335′ may be performed in response to various input types. If the user inputs geolocation price information, geolocation price information is added or updated. (Block 1030) Associated geolocation targeting information may also be populated or revised in accordance with the price information. (Block 1040) For example, if a user enters a maximum price per click of $0.80 for California, and if the ad does not include geolocation targeting for California, such information may be added. If the user later changes this maximum price per click for California to $0.00, the geolocation targeting for California may be turned off or removed. Referring back to block 1020, if the user inputs geolocation targeting information, the geolocation targeting information is added or updated. (Block 1050) Associated geolocation price information may be requested (Block 1060) but need not be provided.
In one embodiment of the present invention, the advertiser user interface can be location specific.
In one embodiment of the present invention, if an advertiser inputs geolocation targeting information, it may be advisable to have them remove location modifiers used in keyword targeting.
In one embodiment of the present invention, advertisers may be limited in the number and/or combination of types of geolocation information entered.
Other features of the advertiser user interface may be provided to make entering and/or managing advertising information more convenient. For example, if any advertiser has an existing campaign, but wants to add a geolocation targeted campaign, bulk importing support may be provided so that the advertiser does not need to re-enter common advertising information. Help features may be used to suggest additional geolocation information (more of the same type, more specific, more general, etc.) in response to entered geolocation information. For example, if the advertiser enters a postal zip code, they may be provided with one or more towns, regions, etc.
FIG. 11 is high-level block diagram of a machine 1100 that may perform one or more of the operations discussed above. The machine 1100 basically includes one or more processors 1110, one or more input/output interface units 1130, one or more storage devices 1120, and one or more system buses and/or networks 1140 for facilitating the communication of information among the coupled elements. One or more input devices 1132 and one or more output devices 1134 may be coupled with the one or more input/output interfaces 1130.
The one or more processors 1110 may execute machine-executable instructions (e.g., C or C++ running on the Solaris operating system available from Sun Microsystems Inc. of Palo Alto, Calif. or the Linux operating system widely available from a number of vendors such as Red Hat, Inc. of Durham, N.C.) to effect one or more aspects of the present invention. At least a portion of the machine executable instructions may be stored (temporarily or more permanently) on the one or more storage devices 1120 and/or may be received from an external source via one or more input interface units 1130.
In one embodiment, the machine 1100 may be one or more conventional personal computers. In this case, the processing units 1110 may be one or more microprocessors. The bus 1140 may include a system bus. The storage devices 1120 may include system memory, such as read only memory (ROM) and/or random access memory (RAM). The storage devices 1120 may also include a hard disk drive for reading from and writing to a hard disk, a magnetic disk drive for reading from or writing to a (e.g., removable) magnetic disk, and an optical disk drive for reading from or writing to a removable (magneto-) optical disk such as a compact disk or other (magneto-) optical media.
A user may enter commands and information into the personal computer through input devices 1132, such as a keyboard and pointing device (e.g., a mouse) for example. Other input devices such as a microphone, a joystick, a game pad, a satellite dish, a scanner, or the like, may also (or alternatively) be included. These and other input devices are often connected to the processing unit(s) 1110 through an appropriate interface 1130 coupled to the system bus 1140. The output devices 1134 may include a monitor or other type of display device, which may also be connected to the system bus 1140 via an appropriate interface. In addition to (or instead of) the monitor, the personal computer may include other (peripheral) output devices (not shown), such as speakers and printers for example.
Different geolocation information may have different scope, and some geolocation information may contain other geolocation information. Generally, for purposes of determining ad relevancy, a match of more specific geolocation information (e.g., town) may be weighted more heavily than a match of less specific geolocation information (e.g., country). Generally, for purposes of ad scoring, the most specific geolocation price and/or performance information that matches will be used. That is, if an ad has price and performance information for both San Diego and California, if the request geolocation information indicates an end user in San Diego, the San Diego price and performance information will be used. If on the other hand, the request geolocation information indicates an end user in Sacramento, the California price and performance information will be used. If the request geolocation information indicates an end user in Omaha, Nebraska, neither will be used.
There are many different ways to score ads. Some examples include (a) using a distance between a presence of the advertiser and the end user, (b) using a local availability of an item sought by the end user, (c) using an advertiser attributes (e.g. a location of the advertiser's closest retail outlet), etc. Ads can be ordered and/or priced using language criteria (e.g., query/display language, information derived about user or advertiser's language such as location of user in Japantown).
Although some examples above used geolocation information as a current location of the user, the geolocation information may be a location that the user is interested in. For example, if a search query includes a zip code, it may be inferred that the user is interested in a location defined by the zip code, or located within in the zip code. If the search query includes a city name, region name, and/or a state name, it may be inferred that the user is interested in a location defined by such a name(s). Thus, for example, a user may be interested in an area which may be the same as, or different from, the current area of the user. The targeting, scoring, content, and/or performance tracking of ads may be affected using a location of interest.
In view of the foregoing, the present invention allows more relevant ads to be served by using location information.
wherein the geolocation targeting information associated with the ad is defined by at least one geographic reference point.
wherein the act of determining the relevancy of the ad further uses a comparison of keyword targeting associated with the ad and the search terms.
wherein the act of determining the relevancy of the ad further uses a comparison of ad relevance information and the document relevance information.
4. The method of claim 1 wherein the geolocation targeting information corresponds to a circular area having a radius about a specified geographic reference point.
5. The method of claim 1 wherein the geolocation targeting information corresponds to an area defined by at least three geographic reference points.
6. The method of claim 5 wherein the area defined by at least three geographic reference points is a polygon.
wherein the geolocation price information associated with the ad corresponds to an area defined by at least one geographic reference point.
8. The method of claim 7 wherein the area includes a circular area having a radius about a specified geographic reference point.
9. The method of claim 7 wherein the area includes an area defined by at least three geographic reference points.
10. The method of claim 9 wherein the area defined by at least three geographic reference points is a polygon.
wherein the geolocation information is a zip code included in the request.
12. The method of claim 11 wherein the request is a search query.
wherein the geolocation information is at least one of a city name, a state name, a region name, and a country name, included in the request.
14. The method of claim 13 wherein the request is a search query.
wherein the means for determining the relevancy of the ad further use a comparison of keyword targeting associated with the ad and the search terms.
wherein the means for determining the relevancy of the ad further use a comparison of ad relevance information and the document relevance information.
18. The apparatus of claim 15 wherein the geolocation targeting information corresponds to a circular area having a radius about a specified geographic reference point.
19. The apparatus of claim 15 wherein the geolocation targeting information corresponds to an area defined by at least three geographic reference points.
20. The apparatus of claim 19 wherein the area defined by at least three geographic reference points is a polygon.
22. The apparatus of claim 21 wherein the area includes a circular area having a radius about a specified geographic reference point.
23. The apparatus of claim 21 wherein the area includes an area defined by at least three geographic reference points.
24. The apparatus of claim 23 wherein the area defined by at least three geographic reference points is a polygon.
26. The apparatus of claim 25 wherein the request is a search query.
28. The apparatus of claim 27 wherein the request is a search query.
BRPI0815494A2 (en) 2007-08-14 2015-07-14 Visa Usa Inc Computer-implemented method, and system.

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This post was written by Peter Reap, editor of CCH Business Franchise Guide.
When translating and interpreting China’s laws and regulations applicable to franchising, the structure of China’s legal system must be kept in mind, Toronto franchise attorney Paul Jones writes in his recent article, China’s Franchise Laws: Cases and Commentaries. China has adopted a civil law model in which broad principles are set out in laws of general application and the decisions of courts do not have precedential value.
One of the first decisions by a Chinese court to review a franchisor’s failure to make disclosures required by the Measures is Haiyan v. Beijing Hansen Cosmetology Ltd. Co. (Beijing Chaoyang District People’s Court, 2005). The franchisee of a cosmetics shop business had paid a franchise fee of approximately $22,000 to a franchisor, but subsequently discovered that the franchisor’s trademark was not registered; that the franchisor’s brand was not, as had been represented, an international brand; and that there were undisclosed problems in product supply. The court noted that the Measures required written disclosure of basic information and found that the franchisor had intentionally violated its disclosure obligation.
In its analysis of the purpose of the Measures, the court determined that a violation of the disclosure obligation constituted fraud. Citing provisions of China’s Contract Law, the court declared the parties’ agreement to be lacking in fairness, rescinded the agreement, and ordered the return of the franchisee’s money.
Court decisions holding franchise agreements invalid due to the franchisor’s lack of necessary qualifications are currently more common than decisions ordering rescission for a failure to disclose, Mr. Jones observes. Article 7 of the Measures sets out the qualifications required for a franchisor to operate in China. While foreign commentators have focused on the barrier to entry posed by the requirement of having operated two locations in China for at least one year, Chinese commentators have focused on whether the foreign franchisor is duly organized under China’s laws and regulations to offer franchises, the author concludes.
The full text of the article, China’s Franchise Laws: Cases and Commentaries, appears at CCH Business Franchise Guide ¶7068.
The government of British Columbia, Canada’s third largest province, is apparently considering introducing franchise legislation, according to Toronto franchise attorney Paul Jones.
Currently, three other Canadian provinces have franchise laws—Alberta, Ontario, and Prince Edward Island. In addition, the Uniform Law Conference of Canada has adopted and recommended enactment of a uniform franchise disclosure law and regulations governing disclosure documents and mediation of disputes. Further information on Canadian franchise laws appear at CCH Business Franchise Guide ¶7020.
It’s been conventional wisdom for a decade that international franchising is in a period of rapid growth, as franchisors cross borders to reach new markets. In many countries, the law affecting franchising has been a step behind the business realities. However, recent legal developments appear to be catching up in a hurry.
During the last 10 months, six foreign jurisdictions have adopted franchise laws or regulations, bringing the number of jurisdictions specifically regulating franchising to 23. The latest countries joining the list are Vietnam, Belgium, and Sweden.
Vietnam enacted a broad franchise disclosure/registration and relationship law, as well as adopting detailed implementing regulations. The law, effective January 1, 2006, requires franchisors to register with the Ministry of Trade prior to commencing franchising and to provide a prospective franchisee with a copy of the franchise agreement and a “franchise description document” at least 15 days prior to the execution of a franchise agreement. The law also imposes restrictions on the franchisor’s right to terminate a franchise and provides procedures for the assignment of a franchise.
Belgium adopted a statute that requires franchisors to provide the prospective franchisee with a two-part disclosure document at least one month prior to the execution of an agreement or commercial partnership with a franchisee. If any one of the required disclosures is not made, the franchisee may nullify the parties' agreement within two years of its execution. The law became effective February 1, 2006.
The Swedish Parliament passed the "Law on the Duty of a Franchisor to Provide Information" (Law No. 2006:484) in May 2006. It came into force on October 1, 2006, and governs agreements executed on or after that date. The law is strictly a disclosure law and does not govern the franchise relationship. It requires a franchisor to provide specific information to a prospective franchisee in "ample time before a franchise agreement is entered into." The law provides for a right to seek injunctive relief against a franchisor that fails to comply.
This flurry of legislative activity followed a relative slow period of franchise law enactments in the early part of this decade. The first active period for foreign franchise laws was in the mid-to-late 1990s.
All the foreign franchise laws and regulations appear in CCH Business Franchise Guide, the only resource that publishes global franchise laws in official and unofficial English translations.
The conviction of an e-mail marketer under the “anti-Spam” provisions of the Virginia Computer Crimes Act survived constitutional attacks that the statute violated the First Amendment, breached the Dormant Commerce Clause, and was unconstitutionally vague. Thus, the Virginia Court of Appeals upheld a jury conviction under the “anti-Spam” statute and a nine-year prison sentence.
The Virginia Computer Crimes Act provides that a person who intends to falsify electronic mail transmission or routing information in unsolicited bulk e-mail commits a Class 6 felony if the volume of the transmission exceeds 10,000 attempted recipients within any 24-hour period, 100,000 attempted recipients in any 30-day period, or one million recipients in any one-year period (http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?000+cod+18.2-152.3C1).
On three occasions in July 2003, the marketer used computers in his home in North Carolina to send a combined 55,000 unsolicited bulk e-mails with falsified routing and transmission information to subscribers of AOL, which has servers located in Virginia. Based on this evidence, and the seizure of compact discs containing at least 176 million stolen e-mail addresses, a jury convicted the marketer of three counts of violating the “anti-Spam” statute.
On appeal, the marketer contended that the Virginia “anti-Spam” statute was overly broad in violation of the First Amendment. However, the court held that the statute did not proscribe speech; it merely proscribed intentional falsity in the massive, uncompensated use of the private property of an electronic mail service provider. The statute could not be overly broad because no protected speech fell within its scope.
Contrary to the marketer’s claim, the statue did not violate the Dormant Commerce Clause on the theory that the Act regulated transactions outside Virginia's jurisdiction. Generally, a state statute passes constitutional muster if it regulates evenhandedly to effectuate a legitimate local public interest and its effects on interstate commerce are only incidental. It was unquestionable that anti-spam laws promoted local interests. America Online, whose users received the bulk e-mails, expended significant resources in an effort to protect its private property from spammers and to shield its subscribers from spamming.
The court held that statute was not constitutionally vague. The word “unsolicited” had a practically universal definition. An e-mail is “unsolicited” if the recipient neither requested nor consented to receive such e-mails and if the sender and recipient had no preexisting business or personal relationship. A contention that “bulk”' was a vague term also failed because the law specifically stated how many attempted recipients may be solicited within particular periods of time.
The decision is Jaynes v. Commonwealth of Virginia, Court of Appeals of Virginia, Alexandria, Record No. 1054-05-4, September 5, 2006. The opinion is scheduled to appear in the October 31 report of the CCH Advertising Law Guide.
Following a term in which it decided four antitrust cases, the U.S. Supreme Court started its October 2006 Term having granted review in three antitrust cases, with several other interesting petitions still in play.
In Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombley, the Court will review a Second Circuit decision (2005-2 TRADE CASES ¶74,951) that the customers of a telecommunications company did not have to plead so-called “plus factors” to sufficiently allege that telecommunications providers conspired to refrain from competing against one another. Defendant Bell Atlantic questioned whether the customers had stated a claim under Section 1 of the Sherman Act by merely alleging that the company engaged in parallel conduct and participated in a conspiracy—without including any allegation that would establish the existence of a conspiracy under the applicable legal standard.
The Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice submitted a joint brief in favor of Bell Atlantic, arguing that the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure require that a complaint allege enough facts to place a defendant on notice and that specificity in pleading is particularly important in a Section 1 Sherman Act action. Claims of parallel conduct, together with bald allegations of conspiracy, are insufficient to state a claim under Section 1, according to the agencies. The Court granted review on June 26. Oral argument is scheduled for November 27.
Again the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice submitted a brief in favor of the defendant, contending that “competitive bidding” was analogous to “competitive pricing” and therefore the Brooke Group standards should apply. Certiorari was granted on June 26. Oral argument is scheduled for November 28.
The third case involves a patent licensee’s antitrust claim against the patent owner for extending control of the invention through a settlement agreement with a competitor. In MedImmune, Inc. v. Genentech, Inc., the Federal Circuit held that the interference settlement between competing biotechnology companies was not per se or presumptively illegal under the Sherman Act (2005-2 TRADE CASES ¶74,972). The court ruled that application of a per se illegality standard would discourage—if not prevent—settlements, placing unnecessary burdens on the courts and the Patent and Trademark Office (PTO). Moreover, the per se or presumptive illegality urged by the licensee for interference settlements was contrary to both precedent and policy, as recorded in the Department of Justice/FTC’s Antitrust Guidelines for the Licensing of Intellectual Property (http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/public/guidelines/0558.htm). In addition to the antitrust claims, the licensee had alleged fraud on the PTO, which was rejected for failure to meet the pleading requirements of Rule 9(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
The petition for review questioned whether a patent licensee is required to refuse to pay royalties and materially breach a license agreement before bringing suit to declare the patent invalid, unenforceable, or not infringed. The Supreme Court granted review of the decision on February 21. Oral arguments were held on October 4.
This activity is a continuation of a trend from the October 2005 Term, one of more active terms in recent years. During the last term, the Supreme Court handed down antitrust decisions on the topics of tying arrangements ( Illinois Tool Works Inc. et al. v. Independent Ink, Inc., 2006-1 Trade Cases ¶75,144); joint venture pricing (Texaco Inc. v. Dagher, 2006-1 Trade Cases ¶75,143); attempted monopolization (Unitherm Foods Systems, Inc .v. Swift-Eckrich, Inc., 2006-1 Trade Cases ¶75,100); and price discrimination (Volvo Trucks North America, Inc.v. Reeder-Simco GMC, Inc., 2006-1 Trade Cases ¶75,077).
Why a Trade Regulation Blog?
When I started writing about antitrust and trade regulation law in 1981, my contact with practitioners was limited to my words on the page, networking at legal conferences, and the occasional letter or telephone call. Some lawyers, hearing through the grapevine about a particularly important court decision, would call to request that we mail out a hard copy to them. We were happy to use any method of communication available.
As time went on, we adapted to new media and technology. In 1997, we provided the Trade Regulation Reporter and Business Franchise Guide on CD-ROM and added RICO Business Disputes Guide soon thereafter. Three years later, we launched the publications on the web, through the CCH Internet Research Network. A few years ago, we started “pushing out” electronic versions of the Trade Regulation Reports weekly newsletter by e-mail.
Surveying the communications landscape, a blog appeared to be the next logical step to connecting with our customers and colleagues. A blog will enable us to post news in real time and receive responses almost immediately. The casual nature of a blog will allow us to comment more informally about policies and trends and will facilitate discussion among practitioners, government enforcers, students, and scholars.
We understand that, these days, legal research is performed in various formal and informal ways. In addition to using traditional research methods, lawyers may consult electronic newsletters, practice area listservs, legal news web sites, and specialized blogs. We ask that you check us out in the days and weeks to come. We invite you contribute to the discussion. Our goal is to become part of your online information gathering—and information sharing—routine.

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Thank you for visiting our homepage. Thank you for your interest in our hotel business. The protection of personal data is important to us. The use of our Internet pages is basically possible without any indication of personal data. However, if a user wishes to make use of the company’s special services via this website, the processing of personal data may become necessary. If the processing of personal data is necessary and there is no legal basis for such processing, we generally obtain the consent of the data subject.
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We take numerous technical and organisational measures to protect your personal data against unintentional or unlawful deletion, alteration or loss and against unauthorised disclosure or access. Nevertheless, Internet-based data transmissions, for example, can always have security gaps, so that absolute protection cannot be guaranteed. For this reason, every person concerned is free to transmit personal data to us by alternative means, for example by telephone.
This website contains links to other websites (so-called external links). As a provider, our company is responsible for its own content in accordance with the applicable European and national laws. Links to contents provided by other providers are to be distinguished from these own contents. We have no influence on whether the operators of other websites comply with the applicable European and national legal provisions. Please inform yourself about the data protection declarations provided on the respective website. Our company accepts no responsibility for external content that is provided for use via links and is specially marked and does not adopt its content as its own. For illegal, incorrect or incomplete contents as well as for damages, which result from the use or non-use of the information, alone the offerer of the web page, to which one referred, is responsible.
The website of our company collects a series of general data and information each time a person or an automated system accesses the website. This general data and information is stored in the log files of the server. We may record (1) the browser types and versions used, (2) the operating system used by the accessing system, (3) the website from which an accessing system reaches our website (so-called referrer), (4) the subwebsites which are accessed via an accessing system on our website, (5) the date and time of access to the Website, (6) an Internet Protocol address (IP address), (7) the Internet service providers of the accessing system, and (8) other similar data and information used for security purposes in the event of attacks on our information technology systems. When using this general data and information, our company does not draw any conclusions about the person concerned. Rather, this information is required to (1) correctly deliver the contents of our website, (2) optimize the contents of our website and the advertising for it, (3) ensure the permanent functionality of our information technology systems and the technology of our website, and (4) provide law enforcement authorities with the information necessary for criminal prosecution in the event of a cyber attack. These anonymously collected data and information are therefore evaluated by our company statistically and with the aim of ensuring data protection and the processed personal data. The anonymous data of the server log files are stored separately from all personal data provided by a person concerned.
The person concerned has the option of registering on the website of those responsible by providing personal data. Which personal data is transmitted to the responsible person is determined by the respective input mask which is used for the registration. The personal data entered by the person concerned will be collected and stored exclusively for internal use by the person responsible and for his own purposes. The person responsible can arrange for the data to be passed on to one or more contract processors, for example a mailing service provider, who also uses the personal data exclusively for internal use attributable to the person responsible. Furthermore, the IP address assigned to the person concerned by the Internet service provider (ISP), the date and time of registration are stored when the person responsible registers on the website. This data is stored against the background that this is the only way to prevent misuse of our services and, if necessary, to enable us to investigate criminal offences committed. In this respect, the storage of this data is necessary to protect those responsible. This data will not be passed on to third parties unless required to do so by law or for the purpose of criminal prosecution. The registration of the data subject by voluntarily providing personal data serves the persons responsible to offer the data subject content or services which, due to the nature of the matter, can only be offered to registered users. Registered persons are free to change the personal data provided during registration at any time or to have it completely deleted from the data stock of those responsible. Upon request, the data controller will inform each data subject at any time which personal data relating to the data subject is stored. Furthermore, the person responsible corrects or deletes personal data at the request or notice of the person concerned, insofar as there are no legal obligations to store such data. All the employees of the persons responsible are available to the person concerned as contact persons in this context.
Due to legal regulations, our company’s website contains information that enables us to contact our company electronically quickly and to communicate directly with us, which also includes a general address for so-called electronic mail (e-mail address). If a person concerned contacts the person responsible via e-mail or a contact form, the personal data transmitted by the person concerned are automatically stored. Such personal data voluntarily transmitted by a data subject to the data controller will be stored for the purpose of processing or contacting the data subject. This personal data is not passed on to third parties.
The data controller processes and stores personal data of the data subject only for the period necessary to achieve the storage purpose or insofar as this has been provided for by the European Directive and Regulation Giver or another legislator in laws or regulations to which the data controller is subject. If the storage purpose ceases to apply or if a storage period prescribed by the European Directive and Regulation Giver or another competent legislator expires, the personal data is routinely blocked or deleted in accordance with the statutory provisions.
Any data subject shall have the right granted by the European legislator of directives and regulations to request confirmation from the data controller as to whether personal data concerning him/her are processed. If a data subject wishes to exercise this right of confirmation, he may contact an employee of the controller at any time.
Furthermore, the data subject has a right of access to information as to whether personal data have been transferred to a third country or to an international organisation. If this is the case, the data subject also has the right to obtain information on the appropriate guarantees in connection with the transfer. If a person concerned wishes to make use of this right to information, he or she can contact an employee of the person responsible at any time.
Any person data subject to the processing of personal data shall have the right granted by the European legislator of directives and regulations to request the immediate correction of inaccurate personal data concerning him/her. Furthermore, taking into account the purposes of the processing, the data subject has the right to request the completion of incomplete personal data, including by means of a supplementary declaration. If a person concerned wishes to make use of this right of correction, he or she can contact an employee of the person responsible at any time.
The deletion of personal data is necessary for the fulfilment of a legal obligation.
Obligation required by Union law or by the law of the Member States to which the person responsible is subject.
If one of the above-mentioned reasons applies and a person concerned wishes to have personal data stored at our company deleted, he or she can contact an employee of those responsible at any time. The employee of our company will arrange for the request for deletion to be complied with immediately.
If the personal data have been made public by our company and if our company, as data controller, is obliged to delete the personal data pursuant to Art. 17 para. 1 DS-GMO, our company shall take appropriate measures, including technical measures, taking into account the available technology and the implementation costs, to inform other data processors who process the published personal data, that the data subject has requested the deletion of all links to this personal data or of copies or replications of this personal data from these other data processors, insofar as the processing is not necessary. The employee of our company will do what is necessary in individual cases.
The data subject has lodged an objection to the processing pursuant to Art. 21 para. 1 DS-GMO and it has not yet been determined whether the legitimate reasons of those responsible outweigh those of the data subject.
If one of the above conditions is fulfilled and a person concerned wishes to request the restriction of personal data stored by our company, he or she can contact an employee of those responsible at any time. The employee of our company will cause the restriction of the processing.
Furthermore, in exercising his right to data transferability pursuant to Article 20(1) DS-GMO, the data subject has the right to obtain that the personal data be transferred directly by a data controller to another data controller, provided this is technically feasible and provided that the rights and freedoms of other persons are not affected thereby. In order to assert the right to data transferability, the person concerned may contact an employee of our company at any time.
Any person concerned by the processing of personal data shall have the right granted by the European legislator for reasons arising from their particular situation to object at any time to the processing of personal data concerning them under Article 6(1)(e) or (f) of the DS-GMO. This also applies to profiling based on these provisions. Our company will no longer process personal data in the event of an objection, unless we can prove compelling grounds for processing that outweigh the interests, rights and freedoms of the data subject or the processing serves to assert, exercise or defend legal claims. If our company processes personal data for direct marketing purposes, the data subject has the right to object at any time to the processing of personal data for the purpose of such advertising. This also applies to profiling insofar as it is connected with such direct advertising. If the data subject objects to our company processing for direct marketing purposes, our company will no longer process the personal data for these purposes.
In addition, the data subject has the right to object to the processing of personal data concerning him or her for scientific or historical research purposes or for statistical purposes at our company in accordance with Article 89(1) of the DS-GMO for reasons arising from his or her particular situation, unless such processing is necessary to fulfil a task in the public interest.
In order to exercise the right of objection, the person concerned may contact any employee of our company directly. The data subject shall also be free to exercise his right of opposition in relation to the use of information society services by means of automated procedures using technical specifications, notwithstanding Directive 2002/58/EC.
If the decision (1) is necessary for the conclusion or performance of a contract between the data subject and the data controller or (2) is taken with the express consent of the data subject, our company shall take appropriate measures to safeguard the rights, freedoms and legitimate interests of the data subject, including at least the right to obtain the intervention of a data controller, to state his own position and to challenge the decision.
If the person concerned wishes to assert rights relating to automated decisions, he or she can contact an employee of the person responsible at any time.
Any person concerned by the processing of personal data has the right granted by the European legislator of directives and regulations to revoke consent to the processing of personal data at any time. If the person concerned wishes to exercise his/her right to withdraw his/her consent, he/she may contact an employee of the person responsible at any time.
The person responsible collects and processes the personal data of applicants for the purpose of handling the application procedure. Processing may also be carried out electronically. This is particularly the case if an applicant sends the relevant application documents to the person responsible by electronic means, for example by e-mail or via a web form on the website. If the person responsible concludes an employment contract with an applicant, the data transmitted will be stored for the purpose of processing the employment relationship in compliance with the statutory provisions. If the person responsible does not conclude an employment contract with the applicant, the application documents will be automatically deleted two months after the decision of rejection has been announced, provided no other legitimate interests of the persons responsible stand in the way of deletion. Other legitimate interest in this sense is, for example, a burden of proof in proceedings under the General Equal Treatment Act (AGG).
The person responsible has integrated components of Facebook on this website. Facebook is a social network. A social network is an Internet-based social meeting place, an online community that usually enables users to communicate with each other and interact in virtual space. A social network can serve as a platform for the exchange of opinions and experiences or enables the Internet community to provide personal or company-related information. Facebook enables social network users to create private profiles, upload photos and network via friendship requests, among other things.
Each time one of the individual pages of this website is accessed, which is operated by the controller and on which a Facebook component (Facebook plug-in) has been integrated, the Internet browser on the person’s information technology system is automatically prompted by the respective Facebook component to download a representation of the corresponding Facebook component of Facebook. An overview of all Facebook plug-ins can be found at https://developers.facebook.com/docs/plugins/?locale=de_DE. As part of this technical process, Facebook is informed about which specific subpage of our website is visited by the person concerned.
Facebook receives information via the Facebook component that the person concerned has visited our website whenever the person concerned is logged on to Facebook at the same time as accessing our website; this happens regardless of whether the person concerned clicks on the Facebook component or not. If the person concerned does not want this information to be transmitted to Facebook, they can prevent it from being transmitted by logging out of their Facebook account before calling up our website. The data policy, published by Facebook at https://de-de.facebook.com/about/privacy/ and accessible, provides information about the collection, processing and use of personal data by Facebook. It also explains what setting options Facebook offers to protect the privacy of the person concerned. In addition, various applications are available that make it possible to suppress data transmission to Facebook. Such applications can be used by the person concerned to suppress data transmission to Facebook.
The person responsible has integrated components of Twitter on this website. Twitter is a multilingual public microblogging service on which users can publish and distribute so-called tweets, i.e. short messages limited to 140 characters. These short messages are available to everyone, including people who are not registered on Twitter. The tweets are also displayed to the so-called followers of the respective user. Followers are other Twitter users who follow a user’s tweets. Furthermore, Twitter makes it possible to address a broad audience via hashtags, links or retweets.
Every time one of the individual pages of this website is called up, which is operated by the responsible persons and on which a Twitter component (Twitter button) has been integrated, the Internet browser on the information technology system of the person concerned is automatically prompted by the respective Twitter component to download a representation of the corresponding Twitter component from Twitter. Further information on the Twitter buttons can be found at https://about.twitter.com/de/resources/buttons As part of this technical process, Twitter is informed about which specific subpage of our website is visited by the person concerned. The purpose of integrating the Twitter component is to enable our users to disseminate the content of this website, to make this website known in the digital world and to increase our visitor numbers. If the person concerned is logged on to Twitter at the same time, Twitter recognizes which specific subpage of our website the person concerned visits with every visit to our website by the person concerned and for the entire duration of the respective stay on our website. This information is collected by the Twitter component and assigned to the respective Twitter account of the person concerned by Twitter. If the person concerned presses one of the Twitter buttons integrated on our website, the data and information thus transmitted will be assigned to the personal Twitter user account of the person concerned and stored and processed by Twitter.
Twitter receives information via the Twitter component that the person concerned has visited our website whenever the person concerned is logged on to Twitter at the same time as accessing our website; this happens regardless of whether the person concerned clicks on the Twitter component or not. If such a transmission of this information to Twitter is not desired by the person concerned, he can prevent the transmission by logging out of his Twitter account before calling our website. The current data protection regulations of Twitter are available at https://twitter.com/privacy?lang=en.
The responsible person has integrated the component Google Analytics (with anonymisation function) on this website. Google Analytics is a web analytics service. Web analysis is the collection, collection and evaluation of data on the behaviour of visitors to Internet sites. A web analysis service collects, among other things, data on the website from which a person concerned has accessed a website (so-called referrer), which subpages of the website have been accessed or how often and for how long a subpage has been viewed. A web analysis is mainly used to optimize a website and for cost-benefit analysis of Internet advertising.
The person responsible uses the suffix “_gat._anonymizeIp” for the web analysis via Google Analytics. By means of this addition, Google shortens and anonymizes the IP address of the Internet connection of the person concerned when accessing our Internet pages from a member state of the European Union or from another state party to the Agreement on the European Economic Area. The purpose of the Google Analytics component is to analyse the flow of visitors to our website. Google uses the data and information collected to evaluate the use of our website, among other things, to compile online reports for us that show the activities on our website and to provide other services in connection with the use of our website.
Google Analytics places a cookie on the information technology system of the person concerned. What cookies are has already been explained above. By setting the cookie, Google is enabled to analyse the use of our website. Each time one of the individual pages of this website is called up, which is operated by the person responsible and on which a Google Analytics component has been integrated, the Internet browser on the information technology system of the person concerned is automatically caused by the respective Google Analytics component to transmit data to Google for the purpose of online analysis. As part of this technical procedure, Google obtains knowledge of personal data, such as the IP address of the person concerned, which serves Google, among other things, to trace the origin of visitors and clicks and subsequently enable commission statements.
The person responsible has integrated components of YouTube on this website. YouTube is an Internet video portal that allows video publishers to post video clips and other users to view, rate and comment on them free of charge. YouTube allows the publication of all types of videos, which is why complete film and television programmes, music videos, trailers or videos produced by users themselves can be called up via the Internet portal.
The responsible person has integrated plugins of the video portal Vimeo of Vimeo, LLC, 555 West 18th Street, New York, New York 10011, USA. Each time you visit a site that offers one or more Vimeo video clips, a direct connection is established between your browser and a Vimeo server in the USA. Information about your visit and your IP address is stored there. By interacting with the Vimeo plugins (e.g. clicking the start button), this information is also transmitted to Vimeo and stored there.
Art. 6 I lit. a DS-GMO serves our company as a legal basis for processing operations for which we obtain consent for a specific processing purpose. If the processing of personal data is necessary for the performance of a contract to which the data subject is a party, as is the case for example with processing operations necessary for the delivery of goods or the provision of other services or consideration, the processing is based on Art. 6 I lit. b DS-GMO. The same applies to such processing processes that are necessary to carry out pre-contractual measures, for example in cases of enquiries about our products or services. If our company is subject to a legal obligation which requires the processing of personal data, for example to fulfil tax obligations, the processing is based on Art. 6 I lit. c DS-GMO. In rare cases, the processing of personal data may become necessary to protect the vital interests of the data subject or another natural person. This would be the case, for example, if a visitor were injured in our company and his name, age, health insurance data or other vital information had to be passed on to a doctor, a hospital or other third parties. The processing would then be based on Art. 6 I lit. d DS-GMO. Ultimately, processing operations could be based on Art. 6 I lit. f DS-GMO.
Processing operations which are not covered by any of the aforementioned legal bases are based on this legal basis if processing is necessary to safeguard a legitimate interest of our company or a third party, provided that the interests, fundamental rights and freedoms of the data subject do not prevail. Such processing procedures are permitted to us in particular because they have been specifically mentioned by the European legislator. In this respect, it took the view that a legitimate interest could be presumed if the person concerned is a customer of those responsible (recital 47, second sentence, DS-GMO).
Automatic decision making or profiling is dispensed with.
For all questions regarding data protection law, please contact our data protection officer directly. We reserve the right to change our privacy practices and this policy to adapt it to changes in relevant laws and/or regulations or to better meet your needs. Possible changes to our data protection practices will be announced here. Please note the current version date of the data protection declaration.

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