Patent ID: 8260862

Claim:
A method for authenticating a user of an online service, said method comprising: registering the user by requesting the user's name, email address, telephone number, age, city, homepage, profession and comments and storing the name, email address, telephone number, age, city, homepage, profession and comments in a database on a network; accessing the database; sending, in a first electronic communication to the email address associated with the user as stored in the database, an image; placing a first call to the user at a telephone number associated with the user as stored in the database; in response to receiving no answer to the first call at the telephone number associated with the user, leaving a message informing the user of a particular time for a scheduled call-back and placing a second call to the user at the telephone number associated with the user at the particular time; in response to the user answering at least one of the calls, requesting from the user an identity of an object in the image that was sent to the email address in the first electronic communication to the user; receiving a response from the user in response to the request; storing, in the database, a time stamp of the at least one of the calls to the user at the telephone number associated with the user; confirming the user is authentic based on confirming that the response includes the identity of the object in the image; enabling a third party to verify the authenticity of the user by providing a verification webpage with an electronic entry form including an entry field for the third party to submit the email address of the user; and matching an email address received via the verification webpage with the user in the database and presenting to the third party, via the webpage, the user's name, age, city, homepage, profession, and comments received during the registration process, and further presenting to the third party an authentication date, authentication method, and a level of reliability of the authentication.