Patent ID: 8909792

Claim:
A method for tracking social identities, comprising: at a server computer communicatively connected to a user device and a social networking platform, extracting a unique session value from a request sent by a browser application running on the user device, the user device being associated with a user in a first network; determining whether the unique session value contains a social identity, the social identity being a unique identifier used by the social networking platform to identify the user on the social networking platform, the social networking platform being external to the first network; if the unique session value extracted from the request contains no social identity: extracting a unique identifier from a response to the request; associating the unique identifier from the response with the unique session value from the request; and updating an identity database to reflect a new social identity of the user, the new social identity referencing the unique identifier being used by the social networking platform to identify the user on the social networking platform; if a social identity is found in the unique session value extracted from the request, comparing the social identity with social identities stored in the identity database; and if the social identity is found to be one of the social identities stored in the identity database, applying one or more policies to an activity requested by the user, wherein the user is in a group of users in the first network and wherein the one or more policies are associated with the group of users.