System and method for indexing, correlating, managing, referencing and syndicating identities and relationships across systems

• US 10,007,895 B2
• Filed: 01/30/2008
• Issued: 06/26/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 01/30/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Jonathan Brian Vanasco
• Original Assignee: Jonathan Brian Vanasco
• Inventors: Vanasco, Jonathan Brian
• Primary Examiner(s): McCormick, Gabrielle A
• Application Number:
  US12/011,869
• Publication Number:
  US 20100274815A1
• Time in Patent Office: 3,800 Days
• Field of Search: 705 1, 705319, 705 11
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9024 Graphs; Linked lists G06F16/9027 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking

Abstract

A networking database containing a plurality of records for different identities in which identities are connected to one another by defined or interpreted Inter-Personal and Intra-Personal relationships. Individuals using the system may define, group and categorize specific identities and relationships; the system may also define, categorize and group both identities and relationships belonging to individuals registered with the system and unregistered users through computational analysis. Identities and relationships may be discovered by the system via an opt-in user-provided mechanism, via a third-party providing information, or through the system'"'"'s own discovery. Identity and Relationship data can then be used to customize content.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for implementing an identity resolution service, comprising:

receiving a plurality of identities on disparate online services comprising websites and service providers, wherein the identities are without having known correspondence to an entity registered on the identity resolution service when the identities are received;

discovering which individual ones of the identities when compared to the plurality of the identities are likely to be for any same underlying entities, and in response to identifying two identities are likely for the same underlying entity, storing information that represents a discovered identity relationship, wherein the discovering and storing comprises;

retrieving identity information for a first identity in a first internet service from the plurality of identities;

retrieving identity information for a second identity in a second internet service from the plurality of identities;

generating a first contextualized identity for the first identity using the retrieved identity information for the first identity, the first contextualized identity including standardized profile information of a first entity in the first internet service, and the profile information including relationship information of the first entity that associates the first identity with other identities as being inter-related or intra-related, wherein inter-related is defined by a relation to another entity and intra-related is defined by a relation to other identities representing the same entity;

generating a second contextualized identity for the second identity using the retrieved identity information for the second identity, the second contextualized identity including standardized profile information of a second entity in the second internet service, and the profile information including relationship information of the second entity that associates the second identity with other identities as being inter-related or intra-related, wherein inter-related is defined by a relation to another entity and intra-related is defined by a relation to other identities representing the same entity;

managing generated contextualized identities in a social graph;

identifying the first contextualized identity as intra-related to the second contextualized identity through identity resolution on the social graph, the steps including;

analyzing, by a computer processor, the contextualized identities and their profile information;

processing the profile information of the first contextualized identity and the second contextualized identity to determine commonalties between the identities, the commonalties including;

a similarity of the contextualized identity and profile information,

a similarity of inter-related and intra-related identities,

a directionality and character of associations between intra-related and inter-related identities;

generating a likelihood value that the first contextualized identity represents the same underlying entity as the second contextualized identity based on the identified relations and determined commonalties;

upon determining that the likelihood value is greater than a threshold value which indicates the two contextualized identities to be intra-related, aggregating the first contextualized identity and the second contextualized identity into a node representing an aggregated meta-identity, each aggregated meta-identity comprising a collection of intra-related contextualized identities that have been determined to represent the same underlying entity at a selected likelihood value or greater, wherein the aggregated meta-identity'"'"'s node combines information and relationships from the plurality of contextualized identities to generate a unified profile; and

responding to requests for graph operations for identity information by utilizing the aggregated meta-identity or unified profile associated with one or more intra-related contextualized identities in place of the one or more intra-related identities;

wherein the identity resolution services is implemented using one or more computer memories.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the aggregated meta-identities are represented in a graph in the computer memories as nodes, said nodes being connected to a plurality of intra-related contextualized identities via edges describing their relation.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising after the upon determining step, assigning a master-identity stored in the computer memories to each aggregated meta-identity to serve as the representation of an entity that utilizes one or more services identified by the contextualized identities belonging to the aggregated meta-identity.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the likelihood value comprises a probability.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising searching the computer memories for aggregated meta-identities related to a first aggregated meta-identity by commonalties comprising the contextualized identities of the aggregated meta-identities are associated with the same online service.

6. The method of claim 1 further comprising searching the computer memories for aggregated meta-identities related to a first aggregated meta-identity by commonalties comprising the contextualized identities of the aggregated meta-identities are associated with different online services.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein online services have types, and further comprising searching the computer memories for aggregated meta-identities related to a first aggregated meta-identity by commonalties wherein the contextualized identities of the aggregated meta-identities are associated with online services of the same type.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the online services comprise social network providers and the provided services comprise account-identifiers with profile information at the social-network providers used by particular entities,

wherein the contextualized identities comprise particular account-identifiers at particular social-network providers,

wherein the relations between contextualized identities comprise the likelihood value that different account-identifiers at the same or different social-network providers are actually used by the same entity,

wherein the aggregated meta-identities comprise aggregations of particular account-identifiers at particular social-network providers all of which is likely to be used by the same entity, and

wherein the commonalties are represented as pairs of contextualized identities with an online service provided service in a social-network relationship.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the relationships between contextualized identities are determined by reading or analyzing profile information embodied in either a standard content type or format or raw data that may be converted into one or more standard content types or formats, wherein the determination is based upon recognizing relationships and relationship types defined or implied within the data, or deriving a relationship or relationship type based upon the data source, content type or format.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein the relationships between contextualized identities comprise a plurality of types relating to their directionality including:

1-way, bidirectional, “

1 way+refuted”

;

their verification;

or to their character, including;

“

same-as”

, “

friend of”

or “

related to”

’

;

with each directionality type impacting the determination of commonalties differently;

wherein;

a 1-way relationship establishes a potential likelihood of a commonality;

a refuted relationship decreases the likelihood of a commonality;

a bidirectional relationship increases the likelihood of a commonality;

the verification type of the relationship establishes the strength of a commonality at a particular likelihood; and

the character type of the relationship indicates an intra-personal context or an inter-personal context with additional qualitative data of the relationship and provides additional qualitative data describing the relationship.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the aggregated meta identity further includes analysis over relation information of a first user across multiple different online services.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein an identity and its associated profile are automatically indexed and processed due to the request of at least one of the following:

an administrator or process of the identity resolution service;

a user of the identity resolution service;

a user of an associated system;

an associated system;

the associated system itself after having discovered the identity to have a relation to an identity already indexed by the system;

the associated system itself after having discovered the identity while indexing another identity, wherein the indexing is directly provided with data or extracting data from a public or private web page or API or other data source.

13. The method of claim 1 wherein the contextualized identities are aggregated into a previously aggregated meta-identity when the previously aggregated meta-identity was previously determined for the same underlying entity.

14. A computer system comprising:

one or more server computers comprising non-transitive computer memory and configured to provide an identity resolution service that is implemented by configuring the one or more server computers and computer memory to;

receive a plurality of identities on disparate online services comprising websites and service providers, wherein the identities are without having known correspondence with an entity registered on the identity resolution service when the identities are received;

discover which individual ones of the identities when compared to the plurality of the identities are likely to be for any same underlying entities, and in response to identifying two identities are likely for the underlying same entity, store information that represents a discovered identity relationship, wherein the discovering and storing comprises configuring the one or more server computers and memory to;

retrieve identity information for a first identity in a first internet service from the plurality of identities;

retrieve identity information for a second identity in a second internet service from the plurality of identities;

generate a first contextualized identity for the first identity using the retrieved identity information for the first identity, the first contextualized identity including standardized profile information of a first entity in the first internet service, and the profile information including relationship information of the first entity that associates the first identity with other identities as being inter-related or intra-related, wherein inter-related is defined by a relation to another entity and intra-related is defined by a relation to other identities representing the same entity;

generate a second contextualized identity for the second identity using the retrieved identity information for the second identity, the second contextualized identity including standardized profile information of a second entity in the second internet service, and the profile information including relationship information of the second entity that associates the second identity with other identities as being inter-related or intra-related, wherein inter-related is defined by a relation to another entity and intra-related is defined by a relation to other identities representing the same entity;

manage generated contextualized identities in a social graph;

identify the first contextualized identity as intra-related to the second contextualized identity through identity resolution on the social graph, which involves configuring the one or more server computers and computer memory;

analyze, by a computer processor, the contextualized identities and their profile information;

process the profile information of the first contextualized identity and the second contextualized identity to determine commonalties between the identities, the commonalties including;

a similarity of the contextualized identity and profile information,

a similarity of inter-related and intra-related identities,

a directionality and character of associations between intra-related and inter-related identities;

generate a likelihood value that the first contextualized identity represents the same underlying entity as the second contextualized identity based on the identified relations and determined commonalties;

upon determining that the likelihood value is greater than a threshold value which indicates the two contextualized identities to be intra-related, aggregate the first contextualized identity and the second contextualized identity into a node representing an aggregated meta-identity, each aggregated meta-identity comprising a collection of intra-related contextualized identities that have been determined to represent the same underlying entity at a selected likelihood value or greater, wherein the aggregated meta-identity'"'"'s node combines information and relationships from the plurality of contextualized identities to generate a unified profile; and

respond to requests for graph operations for identity information by utilizing the aggregated meta-identity or unified profile associated with one or more intra-related contextualized identities in place of the one or more intra-related identities.

15. The computer system of claim 14 wherein the contextualized identities are aggregated into a previously aggregated meta-identity when the previously aggregated meta-identity was previously determined for the same underlying entity.