Patent ID: 7447756

Claim:
A system for providing temporary aliasing, comprising: a database system operable to store a plurality of network profiles, each network profile being associated with a user, the database system being further operable to provide a first user with a temporary alias to allow the first user to add the temporary alias to a resource list in the network profile associated with a second user, the resource list comprising aliases of other users to which the second user can send communication messages wherein aliases from the resource list are provided to the second user, the aliases comprising at least said temporary alias which is linked to a messaging address of the second user and an expiration period for the temporary alias and at least a non-temporary alias which is linked to a messaging address of a third user and excludes a designated expiration period, whereby the second user can select one of the aliases from the network profile of the second user to request communications with a user associated with the selected alias and wherein the expiration period is for longer than a single chat session; and a service manager coupled to the database system for managing the temporary alias of the first user within the resource list of the second user.