Patent ID: 7689650

Claim:
A method of maintaining a presence model for a messaging system to message among a plurality of computing device users via a communication network, comprising: maintaining a permission for providing to a first computing device a presence indication for a user of a second computing device; based on an indication of a user of the first computing device not being in a messaging list for the user of the second computing device, maintaining the permission to provide only a basic presence indication to the first computing device for the user of the second computing device and to not provide to the first computing device an enhanced presence indication for the user of the second computing device; from the first computing device, causing a message to be sent to the second computing device, wherein the message caused to be sent from the first computing device to the second computing device is a message from the user of the first computing device to the user of the second computing device and, based on the maintained permission and as a result of the message being sent from the first computing device to the second computing device, providing the basic presence indication for the user of the second computing device to the first computing device; also as a result of the message being sent from the first computing device to the second computing device, automatically providing on the second computing device a user interface element for the user of the second computing device to provide an indication to the messaging system of whether to add the user of the first computing device to a messaging list for the user of the second computing device, so as to maintain the permission to provide the enhanced presence indication to the first computing device for the user of the second computing device; maintaining the permission further includes maintaining a global default presence indication for the second user, which may provide more or less information than the basic presence information; and wherein the method further comprises responding to a global presence indication request made by the user of the first computing device for the presence indication of the second user, including determining if the user of the first computing device is an identified user; if the user of the first computing device is determined to not be an identified user, providing the global default presence indication as the requested global presence indication; and otherwise, if the user of the first computing device is in the messaging list associated with the second user, providing the user of the first computing device with the enhanced presence indication for the user of the second computing device as the requested global presence indication.