site 222 independent web sites 230 and consumers 240 the catalogs 210 include sites that engage in e commerce and do not have a mail order counterpart however the catalogs 210 are preferably companies that began as mail order catalogs and have expanded their presence to the internet the catalogs 210 may or may not have their own site on the internet but in any case the catalogs 210 are generally willing to pay compensation to others to sell their products online the consolidator 220 is an entity that collects or consolidates product information from the catalogs 210 the consolidator 220 preferably has a consolidated web site 222 to display and sell the catalogs 39 products the consolidator 220 may offer the product information or a subset of the product information to an independent web site 230 and preferably the consolidator provides the technology to enable the independent web site 230 to access and host the product information as defined herein the term u201c host u201d means to contain and have control over for example an entity that hosts product information contains the product information on a storage device that the entity has at least some control over the term u201c host u201d does not refer to an entity that facilitates sale of products by providing a link such as hypertext back to a site that has control over the product information sites 230 host product information that is received from the consolidator.