Establishing connections between third party accounts maintained by various third party systems and between third party accounts and accounts maintained by an online system

• US 9,935,913 B2
• Filed: 06/10/2016
• Issued: 04/03/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 06/10/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Inventors: Xu, Liang, Qu, Zhonghua, Fadeev, Aleksey Sergeyevich, Abdullin, Artur
• Primary Examiner(s): Nguyen, Tammy
• Application Number:
  US15/179,935
• Publication Number:
  US 20170359293A1
• Time in Patent Office: 662 Days
• Field of Search: 709206, 707758, 707725, 715753, 705 729
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/52 for supporting social networking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1069 Session establishment or de-establishment
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/53 using third party service providers

Abstract

Online system users interact with one or more third party systems, with the online system maintaining an account for each of its users and each third party system maintaining a third party account for each of its users. The online system compares information in a user'"'"'s account to accessible information in third party accounts and establishes connections between the user'"'"'s account and third party accounts based on the comparisons, a connection including a confidence level indicating a likelihood of a third party account being associated with the user of the online system corresponding to the user'"'"'s account. Similarly, the online system compares information in different third party accounts and establishes connections between different third party accounts based on the comparisons including includes a confidence level indicating a likelihood of a third party account and an additional third party account being associated with the same user.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

maintaining accounts associated with various users of an online system, an account associated with a user including information associated with the user;

identifying one or more third party systems, each third party system maintaining third party accounts associated with various users of the third party system and including information associated with the users of the third party system;

establishing connections between a third party account maintained by a third party system and one or more additional third party accounts maintained by one or more additional third party systems, a connection between the third party account and an additional third party account based at least in part on information associated with the third party account and information associated with the additional third party account and the connection between the third party account and the additional party account including a confidence level of a user associated with the third party account matching a user associated with the additional third party account;

establishing connections between the third party account maintained by the third party system and one or more accounts maintained by the online system, a connection between the third party account and an account maintained by the online system based at least in part on information associated with the third party account and information associated with the account maintained by the online system and the connection between the third party account and the account maintained by the online system including a confidence level of the user associated with the third party account matching a user associated with the account maintained by the online system;

generating a cluster including the account maintained by the online system, the third party account, and one or more additional third party accounts based on the confidence level of the user associated with the third party account matching users associated with additional third party accounts and the confidence level of the user associated with the third party account matching the user associated with the account maintained by the online system; and

storing the generated cluster, wherein the confidence level included in the connection between the third party account and the account maintained by the online system identifies types of information having matching values in the third party account and in the account maintained by the online system.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving information identifying an action associated with the third party account included in the cluster; and

storing information describing the action in association with the account maintained by the online system included in the cluster and in association with the one or more additional third party accounts included in the cluster.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving information identifying an action associated with an additional third party account included in the cluster; and

storing information describing the action in association with the account maintained by the online system included in the cluster and in association with the third party account included in the cluster.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving information identifying an action associated with the account maintained by the online system included in the cluster; and

storing information describing the action in association with the one or more additional third party accounts included in the cluster and in association with the third party account included in the cluster.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

selecting content for presentation to the user associated with the account maintained by the online system based on data associated with the third party account included in the cluster by the third party system or data associated with one or more of the additional third party accounts included in the cluster by the one or more additional third party systems.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein establishing connections between the third party account maintained by the third party system and one or more additional third party accounts maintained by one or more additional third party systems comprises:

retrieving information from the third party account accessible to the online system by one or more maintained rules associated with the third party system;

retrieving information from the third party account accessible to the online system by one or more maintained rules associated with the additional third party system;

comparing the retrieved information from the third party account to information retrieved from the additional third party account; and

applying one or more rules based on the comparison to establish the connection between the third party account and the additional third party account maintained by the additional third party system.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein establishing connections between the third party account maintained by the third party system and one or more accounts maintained by the online system comprises:

retrieving information from the third party account accessible to the online system by one or more maintained rules associated with the additional third party system;

comparing the retrieved information from the third party account to information included in the account maintained by the online system; and

applying one or more rules based on the comparison to establish the connection between the third party account maintained by the third party system and the account maintained by the online system.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the confidence level included in the connection between the third party account and the additional third party account identifies types of information having matching values in the third party account and in the additional third party account.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the confidence level included in the connection between the third party account and the additional third party account is based at least in part on types of information having matching values in the third party account and in the additional third party account.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the confidence level included in the connection between the third party account and the account maintained by the online system is based at least in part on types of information having matching values in the third party account and in the account maintained by the online system.

11. A computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer readable storage medium having instructions encoded thereon that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to:

maintain accounts associated with various users of an online system, an account associated with a user including information associated with the user;

identify one or more third party systems, each third party system maintaining third party accounts associated with various users of the third party system and including information associated with the users of the third party system;

establish connections between a third party account maintained by a third party system and one or more additional third party accounts maintained by one or more additional third party systems, a connection between the third party account and an additional third party account based at least in part on information associated with the third party account and information associated with the additional third party account and the connection between the third party account and the additional party account including a confidence level of a user associated with the third party account matching a user associated with the additional third party account;

establish connections between the third party account maintained by the third party system and one or more accounts maintained by the online system, a connection between the third party account and an account maintained by the online system based at least in part on information associated with the third party account and information associated with the account maintained by the online system and the connection between the third party account and the account maintained by the online system including a confidence level of the user associated with the third party account matching a user associated with the account maintained by the online system;

generate a cluster including the account maintained by the online system, the third party account, and one or more additional third party accounts based on the confidence level of the user associated with the third party account matching users associated with additional third party accounts and the confidence level of the user associated with the third party account matching the user associated with the account maintained by the online system; and

store the generated cluster, wherein the confidence level included in the connection between the third party account and the account maintained by the online system identifies types of information having matching values in the third party account and in the account maintained by the online system.

12. The computer program product of claim 11, wherein the computer readable storage medium further has instructions encoded thereon that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to:

receive information identifying an action associated with the third party account included in the cluster; and

tore information describing the action in association with the account maintained by the online system included in the cluster and in association with the one or more additional third party accounts included in the cluster.

13. The computer program product of claim 11, wherein the computer readable storage medium further has instructions encoded thereon that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to:

receive information identifying an action associated with an additional third party account included in the cluster; and

store information describing the action in association with the account maintained by the online system included in the cluster and in association with the third party account included in the cluster.

14. The computer program product of claim 11, wherein the computer readable storage medium further has instructions encoded thereon that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to:

receive information identifying an action associated with the account maintained by the online system included in the cluster; and

store information describing the action in association with the one or more additional third party accounts included in the cluster and in association with the third party account included in the cluster.

15. The computer program product of claim 11, wherein the computer readable storage medium further has instructions encoded thereon that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to:

select content for presentation to the user associated with the account maintained by the online system based on data associated with the third party account included in the cluster by the third party system or data associated with one or more of the additional third party accounts included in the cluster by the one or more additional third party systems.

16. The computer program product of claim 11, wherein establish connections between the third party account maintained by the third party system and one or more additional third party accounts maintained by one or more additional third party systems comprises:

retrieve information from the third party account accessible to the online system by one or more maintained rules associated with the third party system;

retrieve information from the third party account accessible to the online system by one or more maintained rules associated with the additional third party system;

compare the retrieved information from the third party account to information retrieved from the additional third party account; and

apply one or more rules based on the comparison to establish the connection between the third party account and the additional third party account maintained by the additional third party system.

17. The computer program product of of claim 11, wherein establish connections between the third party account maintained by the third party system and one or more accounts maintained by the online system comprises:

retrieve information from the third party account accessible to the online system by one or more maintained rules associated with the additional third party system;

compare the retrieved information from the third party account to information included in the account maintained by the online system; and

apply one or more rules based on the comparison to establish the connection between the third party account maintained by the third party system and the account maintained by the online system.

18. The computer program product of claim 11, wherein the confidence level included in the connection between the third party account and the additional third party account is based at least in part on types of information having matching values in the third party account and in the additional third party account.