Method for sharing relationship information stored in a social network ...

1. A method of providing information about relationships between individuals, comprising the steps of:

receiving, at a computer system for an online social network that manages a member database, a request from a third party computer system that manages a third party database, to identify relationships of an individual who has a record in the third party database, over a computer network, the request including an ID token of the individual;

identifying, at the computer system for the online social network, the relationships of the individual using the ID token and records stored in the member database by: (i) generating ID tokens of records stored in the member database, (ii) locating a record stored in the member database having an ID token that matches the ID token of the individual, and (iii) identifying records stored in the member database corresponding to individuals who are related to the individual; and

returning, from the computer system for the online social network, an indication of the relationships to the third party computer system over the computer network, the indication of the relationships including ID tokens generated from records stored in the member database corresponding to individuals who are related to the individual;

wherein the ID token of the individual and the ID tokens of records stored in the member database are hash values generated using a one-way hash algorithm.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of determining a degree of separation for each of the identified relationships, wherein the step of returning includes the step of returning the determined degree of separation for each of the identified relationships.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the request includes a request to identify relationships of several individuals and is formatted in accordance with a pre-defined API.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the several individuals includes a first individual and a second individual, and the step of identifying includes the step of identifying the relationship between the first individual and the second individual.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the ID token of the individual is generated from an e-mail address of the individual.

6. A method of processing a request for information about a second individual made by a first individual over a computer network and returning the information to the first individual over the computer network, comprising the steps of:

generating, at a first computer system that manages a first database, an ID token of the first individual and an ID token of the second individual upon receipt of the request for information about the second individual made by the first individual;

transmitting, from the first computer system, the ID token of the first individual and a request for information about the first individual's social network to a second computer system that manages a second database, over the computer network;

receiving, at the first computer system, ID tokens of individuals in the first individual's social network from the second computer system over the computer network in response to the step of transmitting;

determining, at the first computer system, that an ID token of any of the individuals in the first individual's social network matches the ID token of the second individual; and

returning the information from the first computer system to the first individual;

wherein the ID token of the first and second individuals and the ID tokens of individuals in the first individual's social network are generated using a common algorithm, wherein the common algorithm comprises a one-way hash algorithm.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the ID tokens are generated using e-mail addresses of the individuals.

8. A method of controlling access to information of a first individual in response to a request for the information by a second individual and returning the information to the second individual based on the relationship between the first and second individuals, comprising the steps of:

generating, at a local computer system that manages a first database, an ID token of the first individual and an ID token of the second individual from records stored in the first database using a one-way hash algorithm;

transmitting a request for information about a relationship between the first and second individuals over a computer network from the local computer system to a third party computer system that manages a second database, the request including the ID tokens of the first and second individuals and identifying the one-way hash algorithm used to generate the ID tokens;

receiving, at the local computer system, information about the relationship between the first and second individuals over the computer network from the third party computer system; and

returning the information from the local computer system to the second individual based on the relationship between the first and second individuals.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the ID tokens are generated from e-mail addresses of the first and second individuals.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein the information about the relationship between the first and second individuals indicates a degree of separation between the first and second individuals.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising the step of receiving an indication of a preference setting of the first individual, wherein the information is returned to the second individual if the degree of separation between the first and second individuals is less than or equal to the preference setting of the first individual.

12. The method of claim 8, wherein the request transmitted to the third party computer system over the computer network is formatted in accordance with an API that has been developed to work with the third party computer system.

13. The method of claim 6, wherein the request includes a degree of separation value (N), and the received ID tokens of individuals in the first individual's social network consist of ID tokens of those individuals in the first individual's social network who are less than or equal to N degrees of separation away from the first individual.