Abstract:
A merchant identification system determines the identity of a merchant that is associated with a merchant identifier. When a user makes a purchase at a merchant, the merchant identification system receives a merchant identifier that is unique to the merchant, along with information regarding the purchase transaction. Based on the information, the merchant identification system determines the location of a user device of the user at the time of the purchase transaction. The merchant identification system then determines a candidate identity of the location of the purchase transaction, such as the name of the merchant. After determining additional candidate identities for the location, the merchant identification system determines the expected identity of the actual merchant involved in the purchase transaction. If the merchant identification system later receives a merchant identifier, the merchant identification system can retrieve the identity of the merchant from a record to identify the merchant.
Abstract:
A method for maintaining a prepaid payment system comprises a user account that can be utilized to complete a purchase transaction with a merchant. A delayed processing window is introduced between a time when the merchant receives a payment approval notification from the payment system and a time when the payment system transmits a payment request to an issuer of a funding account associated with the user's payment system account. The payment system utilizes a user's stored value account maintained by the payment system to satisfy the requirements of a prepaid program, and therefore processes the payment request received from the merchant and transmits the payment approval notification without obtaining prior authorization from the issuer of the funding account. The payment system submits one or more payment requests for the funding transaction at a time after the completion of the purchase transaction between the user and the merchant.
Abstract:
The present disclosure comprises systems and methods for providing a stream of only those photographs (including those inter-mixed with videos and hybrid types (animated gifs, animated photo bursts, etc.)) that may be of interest to particular users in a social network based on consideration of user social graphs and other external signals generated for the photographs based on predefined criteria to determine user interest levels. The systems and methods obtain photographs, retrieve social graphs for particular users, evaluate and filter photographs, rank them, and limit the number of photographs provided for viewing from a single source. Accordingly, only photographs that are determined to be most interesting to particular users are provided for display to them.
Abstract:
A method for maintaining a prepaid payment system comprises a user account that can be utilized to complete a purchase transaction with a merchant. A delayed processing window is introduced between a time when the merchant receives a payment approval notification from the payment system and a time when the payment system transmits a payment request to an issuer of a funding account associated with the user's payment system account. The payment system utilizes a user's stored value account maintained by the payment system to satisfy the requirements of a prepaid program, and therefore processes the payment request received from the merchant and transmits the payment approval notification without obtaining prior authorization from the issuer of the funding account. The payment system submits one or more payment requests for the funding transaction at a time after the completion of the purchase transaction between the user and the merchant.