Partner encoding of anonymous links to protect consumer privacy

1. A computer-implemented method for linking data related to a consumer for a plurality of match partners, comprising the steps of:

a. at a marketing services provider server in communication with a plurality of match partner servers, receiving from each of the plurality of match partner servers a plurality of consumer records wherein each of the plurality of consumer records comprise personally identifiable information (PII);

b. constructing at the marketing services provider server an anonymous link for each of the plurality of consumer records associated with one of the plurality of match partner servers, wherein the anonymous link contains no PII and is not constructed from PII, and wherein the anonymous link is not known to the match partner servers;

c. reading from a partner-specific encryption keys database in communication with the marketing services provider server a partner-specific encryption key associated with the one of the plurality of match partner servers while not disclosing the partner-specific encryption key to the associated one of the match partner servers, wherein the partner-specific encryption keys database comprises an encryption key for each of the plurality of match partner servers and further wherein each of the encryption keys for each of the plurality of match partner servers is unique with respect to each of the other encryption keys for each of the plurality of match partner servers;

d. encrypting the anonymous link for each of the plurality of consumer records using the partner-specific encryption key corresponding to that one of the plurality of match partner servers from whom the plurality of consumer records was received, without disclosing the partner-specific encryption key to the corresponding match partner server;

e. concatenating the encrypted anonymous link with a partner ID to produce a partner-encoded link; and

f. storing the partner-encoded link with each record from the match partner server associated with the partner ID of that partner-encoded link in a restricted-access area comprising an anonymous area devoid of PII and associated only with that match partner server but which is not disclosed to the match partner server.

2. The computer-implemented method for linking data related to a consumer for a plurality of match partners of claim 1 , further comprising the step of applying an initialization vector to the encrypting the anonymous link step.

3. The computer-implemented method for linking data related to a consumer for a plurality of match partners of claim 2 , wherein the encryption step comprises 128-bit AES encryption.

4. The computer-implemented method for linking data related to a consumer for a plurality of match partners of claim 2 , wherein the anonymous link comprises multiple anonymized consumer links.

5. The computer-implemented method for linking data related to a consumer for a plurality of match partners of claim 4 , wherein the anonymous link comprises an anonymous consumer link and an anonymous address link concatenated to the anonymous consumer link.

6. The computer-implemented method for linking data related to a consumer for a plurality of match partners of claim 4 , wherein the anonymous link further comprises a special byte to identify the type of anonymous link.

7. The computer-implemented method for linking data related to a consumer for a plurality of match partners of claim 2 , further comprising the step of concatenating the initialization vector to the partner-encoded link.

8. The computer-implemented method for linking data related to a consumer for a plurality of match partners of claim 7 , further comprising the method steps of:

a. at the marketing services provider server, parsing the partner-encoded link into the partner ID and base data;

b. utilizing the partner ID to select one of the partner-specific encryption keys from the partner-specific encryption key database; and

c. utilizing the selected partner-specific encryption key, decrypting the base data to produce the anonymous link.

9. The computer-implemented method for linking data related to a consumer of claim 8 , further comprising the step of parsing the partner-encoded link to recover an initialization vector, and utilizing the initialization vector along with the selected partner-specific encryption key to decrypt the base data and produce the anonymous link.

10. The computer-implemented method for linking data related to a consumer of claim 9 , further comprising the step of parsing the partner-encoded link to recover a special byte, and utilizing the special byte to identify a type for the anonymous link.

11. The computer-implemented method for linking data related to a consumer of claim 10 , wherein the special byte identifies a plurality of anonymous link types, and wherein the step of decrypting the base data to produce the anonymous link results in a plurality of anonymous links of different types.

12. A system for linking data related to consumers, the system comprising:

a. A plurality of match partner servers, wherein each match server partner comprises a plurality of match partner records, wherein each match partner record pertains to a particular consumer and comprises personally identifiable information (PII) pertaining to that particular consumer;

b. a marketing services provider (MSP) server in communication with each of the plurality of match partner servers across a computer network, wherein the MSP server comprises an anonymous link partner-specific encryption routine to encrypt an anonymous link associated with each of the match partner records to a partner-encoded link, wherein the anonymous link contains no PII and is not constructed from PII, and wherein the anonymous link is not known to the match partner servers, and further wherein the MSP comprises an encryption key database comprising a plurality of encryption keys none of which are known to any of the plurality of match partner servers, wherein each of the encryption keys is associated with one and only one of the match partner servers and each of the encryption keys are unique with respect to each of the other encryption keys; and

c. a plurality of secure storage areas in communication with the MSP server, wherein each of the secure storage areas comprises a plurality of MSP records each pertaining to one of the customers about which the match partner records pertain, wherein each MSP record further comprises one of the partner-coded links, and wherein each of the plurality of secure storage areas contains records pertaining to a single one of the plurality of match partner servers and is accessible by only that single one of the plurality of match partner servers.

13. The system for linking data related to consumers of claim 12 , wherein the encryption routine performs encryption by selecting a partner-specific encryption key from the partner-specific encryption key database that corresponds to the match partner for one of the match partner records.

14. The system for linking data related to consumers of claim 13 , wherein the encryption routine further performs concatenation with a partner ID.

15. The system for linking data related to consumers of claim 14 , wherein the encryption routine performs encryption utilizing an initialization vector and further performs concatenation with the initialization vector.

16. The system for linking data related to consumers of claim 15 , wherein the encryption routine further performs concatenation with a special byte indicative of a number and type of anonymous link.

17. The system for linking data related to consumers of claim 16 , wherein the MSP server further comprises a partner-encoded link decryption routine to decrypt a partner-encoded link associated with each of the match partner records to one or more anonymous links.

18. The system for linking data related to consumers of claim 17 , wherein the decryption routine comprises a parsing routine to parse the partner-encoded link into a partner ID and a set of base data.

19. The system for linking data related to consumers of claim 18 , wherein the parsing routine further parses the partner-encoded link to produce the initialization vector.