Providing Personalized Platform Application Content

• US 20090070412A1
• Filed: 06/12/2008
• Published: 03/12/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 06/12/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Inventors: Steinberg, Arieh, Wang, James, Slee, Mark, D'Angelo, Adam, Cheever, Charlie
• Granted Patent: US 8,694,577 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/203
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/08 for authentication of entities cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for entity authentication H04L9/32
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0884 by delegation of authentication, e.g. a proxy authenticates an entity to be authenticated on behalf of this entity vis-à-vis an authentication entity
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/102 Entity profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1097 for distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/14 Session management for real-time applications in data packet communications networks H04L65/1066
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/146 Markers for unambiguous identification of a particular session, e.g. session cookie or URL-encoding
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/53 using third party service providers
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/02 Protecting privacy or anonymity, e.g. protecting personally identifiable information [PII]

Abstract

A social networking website maintains a profile for each user of the website. The profile includes data associated with a user, such as a connection to one or more plurality of other users of the social networking website or user preferences. The social networking website communicates with one or more third-party application servers to provide one or more applications to social networking website users. When a social networking website user requests an application provided by a third-party application server, the social networking website communicates a subset of the user'"'"'s profile to the third-party application server, allowing the third-party application server to use this profile data to personalize the application performed for the user. A privacy settings associated with a user profile allows the social networking website to limit the profile data communicated to the third-party application server.

Claims

1. A method of providing access to user profile data maintained by a social network website to a third-party application server, the method comprising:

receiving, at the social network website, a request to access an application from a user;

identifying the third-party application server associated with the request;

determining a user profile associated with the user providing the request to access the application, the user profile including a user identifier; and

transmitting the user identifier, user data associated with the user identifier, and the request to access the application to the third-party application server.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving, at the social network website, a request for data included in the user profile from the third-party application server;

evaluating a privacy setting associated with the user profile;

comparing the request for data included in the user profile to the privacy setting associated with the user profile; and

transmitting a subset of the data included in the user profile to the third-party application server.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein transmitting the subset of the data included in the user profile to the third party application server comprises;

responsive to the privacy setting indicating a first data is publicly accessible, transmitting the first data to the third-party application server; and

responsive to the privacy setting indicating a second data is not publicly accessible, preventing transmission of the second data to the third-party application server.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein identifying the third-party application server associated with the request comprises:

extracting an application identifier from the request; and

determining a third-party application server address associated with the application identifier.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein identifying the third-party application server associated with the request further comprises:

determining application data associated with the application identifier, the application data identifying data from the social network website for use by the third-party application server.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein transmitting the user identifier and the request to access the application to the third-party application server comprises:

generating a session key, the session key identifying a data exchange between the social network website and the third-party application server;

extracting a subset of data from the user profile associated with the request to access the application; and

transmitting the session key, the user identifier and the subset of data from the user profile to the third-party application server.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving from the third party application server application content configured for the user based upon the user identifier and the user data.

8. A method of sharing user profile data between a social network website and a third-party application server, the method comprising:

receiving, at the third-party application server, a request from a user to access an application;

transmitting an application identifier and access request to the social network website to receive data from a user profile maintained by the social network website, the user profile associated with the user;

receiving a subset of data included in the user profile maintained by the social network website; and

generating application content personalized to the user based upon the subset of data included in the user profile maintained by the social network website.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein generating the output responsive to the subset of data included in the user profile comprises:

transmitting to the social network website, a request for additional data included in the user profile from the third-party application server; and

receiving a subset of the additional data included in the user profile from the social network website.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the subset of the additional data included in the user profile from the social network website comprises data classified as publicly accessible by a privacy setting included in the social network website.

11. A system for sharing user profile data between a social network website and a third-party application server, the system comprising

a profile store including a profile for each of a plurality of users of the social networking website, each profile identifying a connection to each of a plurality of other users of the social networking website;

an application identification module adapted to communicate with the profile store, the application identification module including a plurality of application profiles, each application profile including an application identifier, an application address and application data, the application data identifying data from a profile; and

a communication module adapted to communicate with the application identification module and the profile store, the communication module receiving a destination application identifier and a requesting profile and transmitting data associated with the requesting profile to the application address associated with the destination application identifier.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the profile store includes a privacy setting associated with each profile, the privacy setting indicating data in each profile that is publicly accessible.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the communication module transmits data associated with the requesting profile responsive to the privacy setting associated with the requesting profile.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the communication module transmits data associated with the requesting profile that is indicated to be publicly accessible and does not transmit data associated with the requesting profile that is not indicated to be publicly accessible.