Identifying and Changing Personal Information

Abstract

Systems, apparatuses, and methods for analyzing information about a user are presented which include obtaining at least one search result based on at least one search terms describing the user; presenting the at least one search result to the user; receiving an indication from the user of the desirability of a search result; and performing an action based on the desirability of the search result. Systems, apparatuses, and methods are also presented for determining a reputation score representing the reputation of a user which include collecting search results from data source, determining an effect on the reputation of the user of the search results from the data source, and calculating a reputation score for the user based on the determined effect on the reputation of the user from the search results from the data source.

1 . A method for analyzing information about a user comprising the steps of:
 obtaining at least one search result from a data source based on at least one search term describing the user;   receiving an indication of the desirability of the at least one search result; and   performing an action based on the desirability of the at least one search result.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising the steps of:
 determining an additional search term based on the at least one search result; and   using the additional search term in the obtaining step.   
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 2 , wherein determining the additional search term is performed automatically. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 2 , wherein determining the additional search term is performed by a human agent or the user. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein an indication is received in the receiving step that the at least one search result is an undesirable search result and wherein the action performed comprises:
 causing removal of or changing the undesirable search result at the data source from which the undesirable search result was obtained.   
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein an indication is received in the receiving step that the at least one search result is an undesirable search result and wherein the action performed comprises:
 determining whether the undesirable search result can be changed at the data source from which the undesirable search result was obtained; and   causing the changing of the undesirable search result at the data source based on the determination that the undesirable search result can be changed at the data source.   
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein an indication is received in the receiving step that the at least one search result is an undesirable search result and wherein the action performed comprises:
 determining whether the undesirable search result can be removed from the data source from which the undesirable search result was obtained; and   causing the removal of the undesirable search result from the data source based on the determination that the undesirable search result can be removed from the data source.   
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 5 , wherein the undesirable search result contains data about the user that is incorrect. 
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 5 , wherein the undesirable search result contains data that is damaging to the reputation of the user. 
     
     
         10 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 determining the relevancy of the at least one search result.   
     
     
         11 . The method of  claim 10 , wherein determining the relevancy of the at least one search result comprises determining whether the at least one search result contains information associated with the user. 
     
     
         12 . The method of  claim 11 , further comprising:
 ignoring the at least one search result if the at least one search result does not contain information associated with the user.   
     
     
         13 . The method of  claim 11 , further comprising:
 determining an exclusionary search term when the at least one search result does not contain information associated with the user, wherein the exclusionary search term excludes a search result that does not contain information associated with the user; and   obtaining at least one search result for the user using the exclusionary search term.   
     
     
         14 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 obtaining at least one additional search result;   generating a search ranking system based on the at least one search result or the at least one additional search result; and   sorting the search results based on a search ranking system.   
     
     
         15 . The method of  claim 14 , wherein a Bayesian network is used to generate the search ranking system. 
     
     
         16 . The method of  claim 15 , wherein the Bayesian network utilizes a corpus of irrelevance-indicating tokens and a corpus of relevance-indicating tokens. 
     
     
         17 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 determining a signature for the at least one search result;   comparing the signature to a previously-obtained signature for a previously-obtained search result; and   determining the relevancy of the at least one search result when the signature and the previously-obtained signature are different.   
     
     
         18 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the obtaining at least one search result step is performed periodically. 
     
     
         19 . The method of  claim 18 , wherein periodicity of performing the obtaining step is based on a user characteristic. 
     
     
         20 . The method of  claim 18 , wherein periodicity of performing the obtaining step is determined based on a data source characteristic.