ADVERTISING-SUBSIDIZED AND ADVERTISING-ENABLED SOFTWARE

The present invention, generally speaking, provides a mechanism allowing a software developer to present advertisements through a software program. In accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the invention, an advertisement module is attached to the software program. The function of the advertisement module is to retrieve advertisements from an advertisement server and to display them to the user. The advertisements are varied to retain the interest of the user. Furthermore, information about the user may be sent to the advertisement server, allowing advertisements to be targeted to the user. Such information may include the category of the software program and the user's usage of the software program, for example. Associated with the ad server are a rules engine and a usage database. Various policies may be controlled by the software developer as well as the operator of the ad server, including the nature of information to be sent to the advertisement server, whether connection will be scheduled or will occur "opportunistically" in conjunction with user-initiated Internet access, whether prolonged inability to connect will result in use of the software being disallowed, etc. When the user clicks on the ad being displayed, the ad module may cause various actions to be taken. For example, a Web browser on the user's machine may be started up and pointed to a location providing further information about the subject matter of the ad. Alternatively, the ad module may simply show a new ad in the ad screen The new add could be a repeat of an already downloaded ad (with repeat count and frequency specified by instructions accompanying the ad) or it could be a freshly downloaded ad. The usage database associated with the ad server is used to compute billing to advertisers, provide for auditing of circulation, etc. Click-through rewards may be provided for in which the software publisher is paid each time a user expresses interest in an ad carried by a software program of the software publisher by clicking through the ad.