METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR MANAGING THE PRIVACY AND DISCLOSURE OF LOCATION INFORMATION
First Claim
1. A method comprising:
- receiving, at a computer system, a request from a requestor for a location property associated with a location of the computer system;
automatically determining, in response to receiving the request, whether a user of the computer system has already specified a location privacy preference for the requestor;
in response to determining that the user of the computer system has not already specified the location privacy preference for the requestor, automatically prompting the user to provide input indicating whether the location property should be shared with the requestor; and
sharing the location property with the requestor only if the user of the computer system has specified the location privacy preference for the requestor to prescribe that the location property should be shared with the requestor.
1 Assignment
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
An approach for managing the privacy and disclosure of location information associated with a computer system. For one aspect, a request is received from a requestor for a location property associated with a location of a computer system. It is then determined whether a privacy preference associated with the requestor has been specified. If not, a user may be prompted to supply privacy preferences associated with the requestor. The privacy preferences are then applied to determine whether or not to provide the requested information. A user setting, such as a basic input-output system memory location setting, may also be implemented to enable and/or disable location-aware computing.
3 Citations
31 Claims
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1. A method comprising:
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receiving, at a computer system, a request from a requestor for a location property associated with a location of the computer system; automatically determining, in response to receiving the request, whether a user of the computer system has already specified a location privacy preference for the requestor; in response to determining that the user of the computer system has not already specified the location privacy preference for the requestor, automatically prompting the user to provide input indicating whether the location property should be shared with the requestor; and sharing the location property with the requestor only if the user of the computer system has specified the location privacy preference for the requestor to prescribe that the location property should be shared with the requestor. - View Dependent Claims (3, 4, 5, 6, 31)
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2. (canceled)
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7-12. -12. (canceled)
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13. A non-transitory machine-accessible medium storing instructions that, when executed by a machine, cause the machine to perform operations comprising:
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in response to receiving, at a computer system, a request from a requestor for a location property associated with a location of the computer system, determining whether a user of the computer system has already specified a location privacy preference for the requestor; in response to determining that the user of the computer system has not already specified the location privacy preference for the requestor, automatically prompting the user to provide input indicating whether the location property should be shared with the requestor; and sharing the location property with the requestor only if the user of the computer system has specified the location privacy preference for the requestor to prescribe that the location property should be shared with the requestor. - View Dependent Claims (14, 15, 16, 17, 29, 30)
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18-22. -22. (canceled)
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23. A system comprising:
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a bus to communicate information; a processor coupled to the bus; a memory coupled to the bus to store information; an antenna coupled to the bus to receive a signal to indicate a location of the system; and a machine-accessible storage medium storing instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the system to perform operations comprising; in response to receiving, from a requestor, a request for a location property associated with the location of the system, determining whether a user of the system has already specified a location privacy preference for the requestor; and in response to determining that the user of the system has not already specified the location privacy preference for the requestor, automatically prompting the user to provide input indicating whether the location property should be shared with the requestor; and sharing the location property with the requestor only if the user of the system has specified the location privacy preference for the requestor to prescribe that the location property should be shared with the requestor. - View Dependent Claims (24, 25, 26, 27, 28)
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Specification