公开(公告)号：US20230394513A1

公开(公告)日：2023-12-07

申请号：US18299929

申请日：2023-04-13

Applicant: UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA

Inventor： RAFAEL BECERRIL ARREOLA

IPC: G06Q30/0201 ,  G06Q30/0204 ,  G06Q30/0203

CPC classification number: G06Q30/0206 ,  G06Q30/0205 ,  G06Q30/0203

Abstract: Disclosed methodology assesses the existence of disparate impact in internet markets that serve geographically dispersed consumers. Implementations of the method can collect unbiased offering (e.g., pricing and/or other fees and costs) data for a large number of products and geographic areas, so that marketing decisions, such as price, recommendations, and delivery fees can be matched to consumer demographic data from established sources such as censuses and large scale surveys. The combined data can then be used to investigate the presence and nature of disparate impact and can be used by internet platforms and retailers to audit their algorithms for disparate impact without collecting or holding the demographic data of their own users. Thus, a methodology is provided for the collection of data required to study the extent to which algorithms in internet markets may induce disparities across demographic consumer groups and whether disparities can be justified by valid interests.