Patent ID: 8655960

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving, by one or more servers, a request from a requestor mobile device to locate each instant messaging (IM) friend device from an IM friends list associated with the requestor mobile device; authenticating, by the one or more servers, the request for use of location-based services; receiving, by the one or more servers, geographic location coordinates from the requestor mobile device; adding, by the one or more servers, random error coordinate information to the geographic location coordinates, adding the random error coordinate information including altering the geographic location coordinates, based on an algorithm, to include an error vector comprising a sum of random error vectors associated with particular geographical points to determine a geographic location point of the requestor mobile device at the time of the request, the geographic location point of the requestor mobile device being independent of a geographic location point of each IM friend device; sending, by the one or more servers, the request to locate each IM friend device and the geographic location coordinates with the random error coordinate information; determining, by the one or more servers, the geographic location point of each IM friend device by adding other random error coordinate information to geographic location coordinates of each IM friend device, adding the other random error coordinate information including altering the geographic location coordinates of each IM friend device, based on the algorithm, to include another error vector comprising a sum of random error vectors associated with particular geographical points of each requested IM friend device, the geographic location point of each IM friend device being independent of the geographic location point of the requestor mobile device; generating, by the one or more servers and based on the location of the requestor mobile device and the geographic location point of each IM friend device, a list of IM friend devices associated with the requestor mobile device, at the time of the request from the requestor mobile device, within a particular region; and sending, by the one or more servers and to the requestor mobile device, the list of IM friend devices within the particular region near the geographic location coordinates with the random error coordinate information.