Patent ID: 8799304

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving, at a first computing device associated with a social-networking system and from a second computing device associated with a third-party system, a query comprising a first identifier corresponding to a user of the third-party system, wherein the first identifier is computed by applying a hash algorithm to a user credential associated with the user of the third-party system, wherein the third-party system is separate from and external to the social-networking system, wherein the social-networking system comprises a graph comprising a plurality of nodes and edges connecting the nodes, wherein at least some of the nodes correspond to members of the social-networking system; determining, by the first computing device, whether the user of the third-party system matches a member of the social-networking system by comparing the first identifier with each of one or more second identifiers that each correspond to one of a plurality of members of the social-networking system, wherein the second identifier is computed by applying the hash algorithm to a user credential associated with the member of the social-networking system that the second identifier corresponds to; and if one of the second identifiers computed by applying the hash algorithm matches the first identifier computed by applying the hash algorithm, then transmitting, by the first computing device associated with the social-networking system to the second computing device associated with the third-party system, social-network information of the member of the social-networking system corresponding to the second identifier matching the first identifier in response to the query.