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PRIVACY PROTECTION AND IDENTITY VERIFICATION IN ONLINE SOCIAL NETWORKS WITH EXTENSION TO PUBLIC SWITCHED TELEPHONE NETWORKS

  • US 20100020952A1
  • Filed: 07/24/2009
  • Published: 01/28/2010
  • Est. Priority Date: 07/27/2008
  • Status: Abandoned Application
First Claim
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1. A method for allowing members of social network communities to communicate using the public switched telephone network without fear of revealing the real phone numbers of both parties, while the called party can be assured the calling party is one that he or she is willing to accept, comprising:

  • advertising access phone numbers for each community through which the members can call each other with the public switched telephone network;

    assigning a unique member ID to each member;

    a member profile storing each member'"'"'s information for each community;

    a member profile interface allowing members access, with a PIN or password, to their member profile information stored in a database;

    accepting a call to any one of the access phone numbers of an online community from a member;

    accessing the member profile;

    associating the calling party with the member ID of the caller;

    associating the called party with the member ID provided by the caller when making the call;

    verifying the identity of the calling party against the member profile database;

    filtering the calls without knowing the calling party'"'"'s public switch telephone network number;

    originating a phone call to the called party via the public switched telephone network on behalf of the caller and bridging the incoming call to the called party.saving the member ID of the calling party in the member profile of the called party;

    hiding the real phone numbers of each party from the other.

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