Patent ID: 7660898

Claim:
A system for providing a presence component in a telecommunications network in which a session to a session terminator is requested by a session initiator upon receiving an instruction from a user, the system comprising: a presence server configured to receive a request for presence information from a requestor, which is configured to receive a session request from the session initiator and to generate the request for presence information, and to process the request for presence information by comparing the session initiator's identity to preferences of the session terminator and sending a preferred treatment dictated by the preferences to the requestor; service logic for requesting session parameters from the session initiator; and a collector configured to collect information from the session initiator; wherein, based upon the preferred treatment dictated by the preferences of the session terminator, the session request is processed in one of at least four possible ways, including the session is initiated by accepting the session request, the session is rejected by rejecting the session request, the session is deferred by directing the session initiator to a message storage system, and the session is engaged in a dynamic information collection mode wherein additional information is dynamically collected from the session initiator through an interactive voice response conversation; and wherein control and privacy of the session is given to the session terminator.