Walled gardens

• US 7,832,003 B2
• Filed: 04/28/2005
• Issued: 11/09/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 04/28/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Hughes, Richard L., Kelly, Sean U., Kott, Ryszard K., Portnoy, William L., Cheng, Lili
• Primary Examiner(s): Zand; Kambiz
• Assistant Examiner(s): RAHIM, MONJUR
• Application Number:
  US11/116,925
• Publication Number:
  US 20060248584A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,021 Days
• Field of Search: 707/710, 707/3, 726/18, 726/5, 726/1, 726/8, 380/277, 380/250, 705/55, 709/201
• US Class Current: 726/18
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/6245 Protecting personal data, e.g. for financial or medical purposes

Abstract

The subject invention provides a unique system and method that facilitates a controlled communication environment which allows a user to participate in a plurality of privacy contexts with other people in a simultaneous manner in an online community. A user can assign or define varying levels of privacy to his/her information or content to control the visibility of such information by others. In particular, a first user can maintain one or more “gardens” or stores of content which may be accessible to at least a subset of the online community. Access to the contents of any one garden can be based on the privacy level of the garden and the privacy level (e.g., access parameters) granted to the person. The privacy levels and arrangement of content can be hierarchal and/or non-overlapping. Thus, a user can seamlessly communicate with multiple users at the same time regardless of their context or privacy level while maintaining the privacy boundaries of each garden.

Claims

1. A controlled communication system comprising one or more computer-readable device to store:

a content organization component to upload a user'"'"'s content to make it available to a person via an online community;

a privacy assignment component to assign one or more content privacy levels to the user'"'"'s uploaded content;

a data analysis component to assign examine the person'"'"'s access input to determine a person privacy level to the person to establish a level of access the person has with respect to the user'"'"'s uploaded content;

a context control component to regulate a transmission of an unaltered communication pertaining to the user'"'"'s uploaded content, the communication regulated based on an autonomous comparison of the content privacy level assigned to the user'"'"'s uploaded content to the person privacy level;

an analysis component for recognizing the communication as being related to a restricted portion of the user'"'"'s uploaded content based on a comparison between one or more words of the communication and one or more keywords associated with the restricted portion of the user'"'"'s uploaded content; and

an artificial intelligence (AI) module to alter the person privacy level to enable the person to remotely access the restricted portion of the user'"'"'s uploaded content.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the person is restricted from accessing the restricted portion of the user'"'"'s uploaded content until the AI module alters the person privacy level.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the access input comprises the person'"'"'s login data.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the user'"'"'s uploaded content is organized into one or more groups consisting of a distinct group or an overlapping group.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein each of the one or more groups of the user'"'"'s uploaded content is assigned a group content privacy level.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the privacy assignment component assigns the one or more content privacy levels to the user'"'"'s uploaded content in response to the user manually dictating the one or more content privacy levels to the privacy assignment component.

7. The system of claim 1, further comprising a multi- context communication component to facilitate user communication with other people logged into an online community at a plurality of person privacy levels at the same time and that mitigates the user from explicitly switching between different privacy contexts.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the AI module raises the person privacy level to give the person full access to the user'"'"'s uploaded content.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the AI module outputs a recommendation to the user to alter the person privacy level.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the user'"'"'s uploaded content is organized in at least one of the following manners:

hierarchal, non-overlapping, non-hierarchal, partially overlapping, or completely overlapping.

11. A computer-implemented method that facilitates controlled communication in a plurality of privacy contexts comprising:

uploading a user'"'"'s content to a social online community, a first portion of the user'"'"'s content having a first privacy level and a second portion of the user'"'"'s content having a second privacy level;

sorting the user'"'"'s content in accordance with the first privacy level and the second privacy level;

launching, via a context control component, a first privacy context communication stream between the user and a first person regarding the user'"'"'s content, the first privacy context communication stream restricted to the first portion of the user'"'"'s content;

launching, via the context control component, a second privacy context communication stream among the user, the first person, and a second person regarding the user'"'"'s content, the second privacy context communication stream unrestricted with respect to the user'"'"'s content, the first privacy context communication stream occurring substantially simultaneously with the second privacy context communication stream.

12. The computer-implemented method of claim 11, further comprising altering the first person'"'"'s access to the second privacy context communication stream by assigning the second privacy context communication stream to a lower communication privacy level during a transmission of the second privacy context communication stream.

13. The computer-implemented method of claim 11, further comprising determining a first person privacy context from a login data.

14. The computer-implemented method of claim 11, further comprising organizing the second privacy context communication stream into one or more groups.

15. The computer-implemented method of claim 14, further comprising assigning each group a group privacy context.

16. The computer-implemented method of claim 11, further comprising automatically assigning the first person a person'"'"'s privacy context based on at least one of user actions and user communications.

17. The computer-implemented method of claim 11, further comprising:

presenting the first privacy context communication stream to the user including a visual representation of the presentation of the first privacy context communication stream indicating that the first privacy context communication stream is associated with the first portion of the user'"'"'s content; and

presenting the second privacy context communication stream to the user including a visual representation of the presentation of the second privacy context communication stream indicating that the second privacy context communication stream is associated with both the first portion of the user'"'"'s content and the second portion of the user'"'"'s content.

18. A controlled communication system comprising:

a processor; and

a memory into which a plurality of computer-executable instructions are loaded, the plurality of instructions performing a method comprising;

examining an access input provided by a person;

assigning a communication privacy level to a social network-based communication stream owned by at least one user;

determine a privacy context of the social network-based communication stream the privacy context pertaining to an amount of access that the person has to the social network-based communication stream based on the at least one person'"'"'s access input; and

altering the communication privacy level of the social network-based communication stream during a transmission of the communication to give the person unrestricted access to the social network- based communication stream.

19. The system of claim 18, further comprising:

monitoring at least one of user actions and user communications with the person; and

automatically determining the privacy context based on at least one of the user actions and the user communications.