Patent ID: 8732846

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving at the social networking system a privacy setting from a user of the social networking system via a user device, the privacy setting indicating whether an application provided by a party other than a provider of the social networking system is authorized to access information about the user, including information about one or more other users with whom the user has established a connection in the social networking system, and wherein the application provides content from a server on which the application is executed to the user device based on the accessed information about the one or more other users with whom the user has established a connection in the social networking system; receiving additional privacy settings from one or more other users of the social networking system with whom the user has established a connection, the additional privacy settings at least in part defining whether the application can make a particular user's information obtained from the social networking system available through the application to other users of the application; receiving at the social networking system a request from the application for information about the user of the social networking system, the requested information comprising information about one or more of the other users with whom the user has a connection in the social networking system; determining, based on the received privacy setting, whether the social networking system is authorized to provide the requested information to the requesting application; and subject to the determining, providing the requested information from the social networking system to the requesting application.