This application relates generally to a method for identifying devices belonging to the same group. More particularly, this application relates to identifying network accessing applications of electronic devices that belong to the same group or household by analyzing IP trajectories of the network accessing applications.
People today are using more and more personal electronic devices such as desktop computers, laptop computers, smartphones, tablet computers and wearable devices to connect with the Internet. These electronic devices have now become necessities, and people usually own and use more than one electronic device in everyday life. For example, a person may use a desktop computer at home, and bring her laptop or tablet computer to the workplace while almost always carrying her smartphone or a wearable device such as a smart watch. Thus, people are not limited to a single electronic device when accessing the Internet, but move from one device to other devices. For example, when a person shops online, she may search products using her smartphone and then move over to her laptop to finally purchase a product that she found previously using the smartphone.
Thanks to ubiquitous wireless accessibility and the light weight of electronic devices, people carry one or more electronic devices more frequently than before and are able to connect with the Internet anywhere they go. For example, a person at home may shop online using her tablet computer, and then bring it to a coffee shop and keep using it while connected to the coffee shop's Wi-Fi network. Also, she may bring the tablet computer when she travels to a different city, and connect the tablet computer to a hotel's Wi-Fi network in that city.
In order to access the Internet, a device usually communicates with a router located nearby. A single internet protocol (IP) address is assigned to the router. So, when a user visits a certain website using a web browser of the device, an IP address assigned to the router may be provided to a server for the website along with a browser cookie specific to the web browser of the device. If a user visits the same website using one device at two or more different physical locations, various IP addresses which are assigned to routers located in those locations are delivered to the server with a single browser cookie associated with the device.
If a user owns more than one device, and uses different devices at different locations, IP address information collected from the devices would be different from each other. For example, if a person visits a website using her laptop computer mostly at home and her tablet computer at a coffee shop, a server for the website will receive different IP address information for the two devices even if those two devices belong to the same person. Thus, the server is not able to recognize that the IP address information originates from a single person.
If a user logs in or signs in to a website whenever she uses each of the electronic devices, a server for the website would be able to recognize, through the login information, that a single user accesses the website regardless of various IP addresses it receives. However, if a user does not log in or sign in to a website when she shops online or otherwise accesses a website, the server for the website would not be able to recognize that a single user accesses the website because of the lack of login information. Rather, the server may conclude that different users accessed the website based on the different IP addresses.
In reality, many people do not log in when conducting online shopping or web searching, and thus, it is difficult for a server to figure out whether any two IP addresses originate from the same person, household or group. One of the technical problems solved by the disclosure is to accurately identify two or more connecting activities that are from devices of a single person, family members in the same household or a certain group so that a server may provide the same content such as advertisements, news, music, etc. to the same person, family members, or group members through multiple electronic devices.