Patent ID: 8593659

Claim:
A method for allowing users of third party vendors to access print shop applications without separate authentication, comprising the steps of: a. a third party vendor server, in response to a user's access to a third party vendor's server or web-site, creating a query-string including a first part containing identification information of the third party vendor encrypted with a master key shared by all third party vendors and a second part containing authentication information of the user of the third party vendor encrypted with a private key assigned only to the third party vendor, the query-string being contained in an inline frame; b. a print shop server, upon receiving the encrypted query-string sent from a server of the third party vendor server to the print shop server, decrypting the first part of the query-string with the masker key to ascertain the identification information of the third party vendor; c. the print shop server, based on identification of the third party vendor obtained from decrypting the first part of the query-string, identifying the private key assigned to the third party vendor, and retrieving the private key assigned to the third party vendor; d. the print shop server decrypting the second part of the query-string with the private key assigned to the third party vendor to ascertain the authentication information of the user of the third party vendor; e. the print shop server, based on identification of the user obtained from decrypting the second part of the query-string, determining whether the user has an existing account on the print shop server; and f. the print shop server automatically logging the user into the print shop server after it is determined that the user has an existing account so that the user may access and use any print-on-demand applications on the print shop server without manually inputting user authentication information on the print shop server.