Patent ID: 8359396

Claim:
A method for managing multiple user identities for a user of an electronic commerce (e-commerce) site, the method comprising: defining the e-commerce site as a plurality of security domains; and in response to a user's request to invoke an operation of the e-commerce site: identifying a type of user identity being used by the user, wherein types of user identities comprise a guest identity and a registered identity, wherein the guest identity is an unique temporary user identity assigned to a user for the life of the user's session within the security domain, and wherein the registered identity is an unique identity that is reusable across sessions within the security domain; determining if the type of user identity is appropriate to invoke the operation; responsive to the type of user identity being appropriate to invoke the operation, determining a security domain of the plurality of security domains to which the operation relates; selecting a session from a plurality of sessions based on the determined security domain; and reusing the selected session for the user automatically in accordance with the determined security domain, the selected session being associated with a user identity and a role, the user identity and the role together indicating privileges for invoking operations of the e-commerce site in the determined security domain.