Patent ID: 9361652
Filing Date: 2016-06-07
CPC Classification: G06F,G06Q,H04L,H04M

Claim Text:
1. A method for establishing communication sessions using a third-party communication service via a social networking system, the method comprising: maintaining user profiles for users of the social networking system, the user profiles including identifying information about the users; establishing a shadow identifier with the third-party communication service for each of a plurality of users, each shadow identifier masking an identity of a user of the plurality of users to enable the user to use the third-party communication service without revealing the identity of the user to the third-party communication service; storing the established shadow identifiers in association with the user profiles for the plurality of users; receiving a request from an initiating user of the plurality of users to establish a communication session via the third-party communication service; receiving presence information about available connections for establishing the communication session; providing the presence information about the available connections to the initiating user to establish the communication session; and establishing the communication session via the third-party communication service using the shadow identifier associated with the initiating user, wherein the third-party communication service cannot identify the initiating user from the shadow identifier associated with the initiating user.