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GoogleGranted patentSecurity & privacyInterest 3/10

Google patents tool to check if privacy notices are visible on websites

This patent describes a system that checks websites to see if they display required privacy notices correctly. It scans the page structure to find text matching privacy keywords and measures how visible that text is to the user.

Why it mattersIt helps ensure that important legal information is not hidden or hard to find, which is a routine but necessary part of web compliance.

In the filing’s own words

To determine whether a web resource complies with a policy for displaying an informational notice, a system obtaining a Document Object Model (DOM) representation of the web resource, the DOM representation specifying a hierarchy of pages and including instructions for displaying content elements. The system traverses the DOM representation of the web resource to determine whether the web resource includes the informational notice, including calculating a likelihood that a content element corresponds to the informational notice based on one or more keywords associated with the informational notice. In response to determining that the content element corresponds to the informational notice, the system determines a set of visual parameters of the content element, and determines whether the web resource is configured to display the content element according to a visibility metric. The system further generates an indication of whether the web resource contains the informational notice according to the visibility metric.

What exactly they claim (claim 1)

1. A method for determining whether a web resource complies with a policy for displaying an informational notice, the method implemented in a computing system and comprising: obtaining a Document Object Model (DOM) representation of the web resource, the DOM representation specifying a hierarchy of pages and including instructions for displaying content elements; traversing the DOM representation of the web resource to determine whether the web resource includes the informational notice, including calculating a likelihood that a content element corresponds to the informational notice based on one or more keywords associated with the informational notice; in response to determining that the content element corresponds to the informational notice: determining a set of visual parameters of the content element, and determining whether the set of visual parameters of the content element complies with a visibility metric; and displaying information indicating compliance or noncompliance with the visibility metric based on the determining of whether the set of visual parameters of the content element complies with the visibility metric, including: when determining that the set of visual parameters of the content element complies with the visibility metric, displaying information indicating compliance with the visibility metric; and when determining that the set of visual parameters of the content element does not comply with the visibility metric, displaying information indicating noncompliance with the visibility metric.

Facts

Company
Google (GOOGLE LLC)
Official title
Automated decisioning system for acceptability of user privacy notices and controls on a user interface
Patent number
US12737428B2
Application number
18634479
Filed
Apr 12, 2024
Granted
Sep 15, 2026
Inventors
2
Claims
18

Classified under

G06F 16/9577 Physics & computingG06F 16/958 Physics & computing
Read the full filing (official PDF) ↗ Open in the Patent Tracker

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Summaries are simplified from the filing’s own abstract and first claim. A patent filing is not a product announcement.
Patent data and drawings: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Nebula is not affiliated with or endorsed by the USPTO.