MANAGED DISSEMINATION OF LOCATION DATA

• US 20120144452A1
• Filed: 12/01/2010
• Published: 06/07/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 12/01/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Dyor, Matthew Graham, Tapia, Pablo
• Granted Patent: US 9,432,381 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 726/4
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/6245 Protecting personal data, e.g. for financial or medical purposes
• 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 63/107 wherein the security policies are location-dependent, e.g. entities privileges depend on current location or allowing specific operations only from locally connected terminals
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/108 when the policy decisions are valid for a limited amount of time
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/084 using delegated authorisation, e.g. open authorisation [OAuth] protocol
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/02 Services making use of location information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/023 using mutual or relative location information between multiple location based services [LBS] targets or of distance thresholds
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/025 using location based information parameters
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/029 Location-based management or tracking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/20 Services signaling; Auxiliary data signalling, i.e. transmitting data via a non-traffic channel
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 48/04 based on user or terminal location or mobility data, e.g. moving direction, speed

Abstract

A location provider manages dissemination of location data of a user to one or more third-party services, so that the user can take advantage of services offered by the third parties, without the associated burden of continuously granting or denying requests by the third party services to obtain location data of the user. A third-party service can obtain location information of a user from the location provider. Users may control circumstances in which the location provider is to share location data of the user with the one or more third-party services.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:

maintaining, at a location provider, location data of a user;

storing, at the location provider, authentication information of the user;

receiving, at the location provider, a request from a third-party application to obtain location data of the user;

receiving, at the location provider, an authentication credential;

determining, based at least in part on the receiving of the authentication credential, that the third-party application has permission to access at least a portion of the location data of the user; and

providing at least a portion of the location data of the user to the third-party application in response to the determining.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising receiving an authorization specifying the portion of the location data of the user that the third-party application has permission to obtain.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 2, wherein the authorization specifies that the third-party application has permission to obtain location data of the user at one or more specified times, has permission to obtain location data of the user at one or more specified locations, has permission to obtain location data having a predetermined level of accuracy, is prohibited from obtaining information data of the user at one or more specified times, and/or is prohibited from obtaining information data of the user at one or more specified locations.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 2, further comprising receiving another authorization specifying another portion of the location data of the user that another third-party application has permission to obtain, the another portion of the location data that the another third-party application has permission to obtain being different than the portion of the location data that the third-party application has permission to obtain.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein:

the request from the third-party application to obtain location data of the user comprises a one-time request for location data of the user, or a request to subscribe to an event or stream of events associated with location data of the user, and

providing at least a portion of the location data of the user to the third-party application comprises sending a response to the one-time request including at least a portion of the location data of the user, or sending a notification including at least a portion of the location data of the user in response to occurrence of each event to which the third-party application subscribed.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the location data of the user comprises a current location of a client device of the user.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the location data of the user comprises a proximity of a client device of the user to another client device or to a location.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the authentication credential is received from the third-party application, from a client device of the user, or from an authentication service.

9. A method, implemented at least in part by a third-party application executing on one or more computing devices, comprising:

identifying, by the one or more computing devices, a triggering event indicating that location data of a user is to be obtained;

causing an authentication credential to be provided to a remote location provider, the authentication credential indicating that the one or more computing devices has permission to access at least a portion of the location data of the user; and

sending a request for location data of the user, the request including an identifier of the third-party application; and

obtaining at least a portion of the location data of the user from the remote location provider to which the third-party application has permission to access.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the one or more computing devices comprise a portable electronic device and the third-party application comprises a client application executing on the portable electronic device.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein the one or more computing devices comprise a backend server and the third-party application comprises a web service hosted on the backend server.

12. The method of claim 9, wherein the one or more computing devices comprise a portable electronic device in communication with a backend server, and the third-party application comprises a web service hosted on the backend server and served to a client application executing on the portable electronic device.

13. The method of claim 9, wherein causing the authentication credential to be provided to the remote location provider comprises sending the authentication credential from the third-party application executing on the one or more computing devices to the remote location provider.

14. The method of claim 9, wherein causing the authentication credential to be provided to the remote location provider comprises requesting that the authentication credential be sent to the remote location provider via a proxy executing on the one or more computing devices.

15. The method of claim 9, wherein causing the authentication credential to be provided to the remote location provider comprises requesting that the authentication credential be sent from an independent authentication authority to the remote location provider.

16. The method of claim 9, wherein obtaining at least a portion of the location data of the user from the remote location provider comprises:

sending a one-time request for location data of the user to the remote location provider; and

receiving a response to the one-time request including at least a portion of the location data of the user from the remote location provider.

17. The method of claim 9, wherein obtaining at least a portion of the location data of the user from the remote location provider comprises:

subscribing to an event or stream of events associated with location data of the user; and

receiving a notification including at least a portion of the location data of the user in response to occurrence of each event to which the third-party application subscribed.

18. One or more computer-readable storage media storing computer-executable instructions that, when executed by a processor of a computing device, configure the processor to perform acts comprising:

sending location data of a user to a remote location provider;

determining one or more third-party applications to which to grant permission to obtain the location data of the user; and

sending an authorization to the remote location provider, the authorization specifying;

the one or more third-party applications that have permission to obtain location data of the user; and

for each third-party application, a portion of the location data of the user that the respective third-party application has permission to obtain.

19. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 18, the determining being based at least in part on receipt of explicit instructions from the user to grant the one or more third-party applications permission to obtain location data of the user and to specify, for each third-party application, a portion of the location data of the user that the respective third-party application has permission to obtain.

20. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 18, the determining being based at least in part on implicit instructions inferred from previous explicit grants of permission by the user.