Patent ID: 8578009

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for correlating online aliases, at least a portion of the method being performed by a computing device comprising at least one processor, the method comprising: identifying, for each acquaintance of a user, each known online alias of the acquaintance of the user by: accessing a user account of the user, the user account associated with an online communication mechanism; obtaining, from the user account, contact data associated with an online alias of the acquaintance of the user; accessing at least one additional user account of the user, the additional user account associated with an additional online communication mechanism that is different from the online communication mechanism; obtaining, from the additional user account, contact data associated with an additional online alias that is different from the online alias of the acquaintance of the user; determining, by identifying at least one common characteristic between the contact data associated with the online alias and the contact data associated with the additional online alias, that the online alias and the additional online alias represent different online aliases for the same acquaintance of the user; associating each known online alias of the acquaintance of the user with the acquaintance of the user by: creating a global contact record for the acquaintance of the user that identifies each known online alias of the acquaintance of the user, the contact record comprising information that identifies at least the online alias of the acquaintance of the user, the additional online alias of the acquaintance of the user, and contact data for the acquaintance of the user; storing the global contact record in a contact-management database; wherein the user and the acquaintance of the user are distinct.