Patent ID: 8819425

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for a social networking site to facilitate privacy protected interactions between users of the social networking site and a third party utility, the method comprising: providing, by a social networking computer system to a user device, content for presentation to a user of a social networking site, the content including social networking information associated with the user and an advertisement provided by a third party utility; receiving, by the social networking computer system based on the user interacting with the advertisement, a request to communicate with the third party utility; responsive to receiving the request, generating, by the social networking computer system, an encrypted user identification based on a social networking identity of the user; and providing, by the social networking computer system, the encrypted user identification and the request to the third party utility for processing, wherein information that would allow the third party utility to decrypt the encrypted user identification is not provided by the social networking computer system to the third party utility.