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About Gustos

Gustos Software develops and markets collaborative filtering software products and tool kits to automate the "word of mouth" referral process. The products are designed to easily integrate into existing Web sites to enable presentation of product recommendations or content that is personalized to each individual user.

Gustos allows users to find the things they like and avoid those they don't. It's like an automated best friend. And like your best friend, as you train Gustos about your tastes and preferences, Gustos can recommend or predict how you will like new things like a movie, a CD, a restaurant, a pair of green plaid shorts or whatever.

Now here's the key difference: Your best friend can only refer you to a limited number of movies, CDs and what not. But Gustos gets information from all over the World. It's like he's seen every movie ever made, heard every CD and eaten at every restaurant. Now you can have best friends everywhere with unlimited experiences.

Reviving Personal Service

There was a time when people knew their neighborhood grocer, produce vendor or pharmacist. They called each other by name and saw each other every day. So it was no surprise to old Aunt Mary when her grocer friend, Mr. Greenbeans, had set aside a dozen fresh new apples that would be great for one of her apple pies. But with Wal Mart, shopping malls and the Internet, have those days been lost forever?

With Gustos, web sites can break the 'generic' content mold, offer personal service and build lasting relationships with their users based on a depth of knowledge and understanding of the tastes and preferences of each user. For example, a fan of Sheryl Crow would be presented with a new release by this artist or artists that other users with similar tastes have rated highly while the Rap fan would receive an entirely difference experience with recommendations for the new Scarface or Snoop Doggy Dogg CDs.

Privacy

Gustos Software supports privacy on the Internet. Users should be able to expect that their privacy should not be violated. However, it is nearly impossible to ensure total privacy. All web sites have logs and 'cookies' allow sites to track user behavior without their knowledge. What sites do with this information and whether the government or anyone else can force web sites to divulge information in their logs is an important concern. We hope these issues will be resolved positively and support the efforts of E-Trust and other groups that are working to guarantee privacy.

To benefit from Gustos, the user must entrust Gustos with certain information or it is impossible to get accurate results. To preserve anonymity, Gustos simply assigns a unique 'cookie' ID to each visitor that chooses to enter ratings for items. Subsequent user ratings are tracked via this 'cookie' so no user login is required. Gustos also does not require any user profile, e-mail address or other data.

For questions or more information, send mail to: sales@gustos.com.