Associating Information With An Electronic Document

Abstract

A system for associating information comprises an association module that uses anchoring information to associate a first piece of information with a second piece of information, wherein the second piece of information is not part of the first piece of information. The system further includes a rendering module that presents the second piece of information for use. Methods for using such a system are also described.

1 - 20 . (canceled) 
     
     
         21 . A computer-implemented method comprising:
 analyzing, via a processor, network content rendered at a client computing device;   determining anchoring information based on the network content;   associating the network content with an advertisement based on the anchoring information;   receiving the advertisement; and   presenting the advertisement at the client computing device.   
     
     
         22 . A computer-implemented method as recited in  claim 21 , further comprising:
 obtaining user preferences; and   receiving a plurality of advertisements from an advertisement data store based on the user preferences.   
     
     
         23 . A computer-implemented method as recited in  claim 22 , further comprising:
 ranking the plurality of advertisements in accordance with the user preferences; and   presenting a subset of the plurality of advertisements according to the ranking.   
     
     
         24 . A computer-implemented method as recited in  claim 22 , wherein advertisers purchase advertising space in the advertisement data store via an advertising user interface. 
     
     
         25 . A computer-implemented method as recited in  claim 24 , wherein the advertisers submit one or more notes individually utilized to associate a particular advertisement with particular web content, the one or more notes including content utilized to associate the advertisements with particular anchoring information. 
     
     
         26 . A computer-implemented method as recited in  claim 21 , wherein the anchoring information includes keywords, and the advertisement is associated with the network content based on the keywords. 
     
     
         27 . A computer-implemented method as recited in  claim 26 , wherein associating includes matching the keywords with content provided in one or more notes submitted by advertisers. 
     
     
         28 . A computer-implemented method as recited in  claim 21 , further comprising protecting personal information of a user of the client computing device. 
     
     
         29 . A computer-readable storage medium having computer executable instructions encoded thereon, the computer executable instructions programmed to, upon execution by at least one processor, configure a computing system to associate information, the computer-readable storage medium comprising:
 an advertising purchasing module that allows advertisers to purchase space for advertisements and access user models that define target recipients for the advertisements; and   a fetching module that receives a client request for supplemental content and obtains one or more advertisements responsive to the client request.   
     
     
         30 . A computer-readable storage medium as recited in  claim 29 , wherein the supplemental content is anchored to web content, the computer-readable storage medium further comprising an association module that analyzes the web content, determines anchoring information from the web content, and uses the anchoring information to associate the one or more advertisements with the web content. 
     
     
         31 . A computer-readable storage medium as recited in  claim 29 , further comprising a ranking module that ranks the one or more advertisements. 
     
     
         32 . A computer-readable storage medium as recited in  claim 31 , wherein the fetching module obtains user preferences and user feedback, and sends the user preferences and the user feedback to the ranking module to rank the one or more advertisements. 
     
     
         33 . A computer-readable storage medium as recited in  claim 31 , wherein the fetching module returns a subset of the one or more advertisements to a client based on the ranking. 
     
     
         34 . A computer-readable storage medium as recited in  claim 29 , further comprising a privacy protection service that protects personal information of a user associated with a client computing device that sends the client request. 
     
     
         35 . A computer-readable storage medium as recited in  claim 34 , wherein the privacy protection service removes personal identification information from the client request. 
     
     
         36 . A computer-readable storage medium as recited in  claim 34 , wherein the privacy protection service includes the client request with a group of dummy requests, thereby obscuring the client request. 
     
     
         37 . A computer-implemented method comprising:
 receiving one or more requests for supplemental information anchored to web content rendered on a client device;   removing personal identification information from the one or more requests;   obtaining information associated with the one or more requests for supplemental content from a content data store; and   returning the information to the client device.   
     
     
         38 . A computer-implemented method as recited in  claim 37 , further comprising grouping the one or more requests with dummy requests, thereby obscuring the one or more requests. 
     
     
         39 . A computer-implemented method as recited in  claim 37 , wherein the information includes an advertisement. 
     
     
         40 . One or more computer storage media storing instructions that, when executed by the processor, direct the processor to perform the computer-implemented method as recited in  claim 37 .