WEB PAGE ANNOTATION SYSTEMS

Methods and apparatus are provided for annotating web pages. A data processing system (1), connectable to a user station (2), receives web page data retrieved from the Internet (3) in response to a user's request. The web page data is analyzed to select, by subject matter, at least one product class to which the subject matter relates from a plurality of product classes represented in a product classification database (10). For each product class, the database (10) stores a set of product data items indicative of attributes of products in that class. Annotations available for display are each associated with a display condition dependent on one or more product data items in the database (10). For each product class selected following analysis of the web page data, product data items are retrieved from the database (10) and used to evaluate the annotation display conditions. If display conditions are satisfied, annotation data indicative of the annotations is supplied to the user station (2) for display.