Patent ID: 7958019

Claim:
A system comprising: a network-based interaction environment including a plurality of peer-to-peer nodes configured to communicate directly with each other using a peer-to-peer protocol and a peer-to-peer client application, the plurality of peer-to-peer nodes including a first peer-to-peer client; and a first peer-to-peer client application configured to run on the first peer-to-peer client, the first peer-to-peer client application to maintain persistent user account information on the first peer-to-peer client, the persistent user account information being related to a plurality of user accounts for conducting e-commerce interactions on the network-based interaction environment, the plurality of user accounts including at least one role-based user account based on a plurality of roles for performing a transaction, wherein the role-based user account is an auction site account, the role-based user account having a plurality of peer-to-peer accounts associated with the role-based user account, each peer-to-peer account being assigned to a different role corresponding to a different particular operation in the transaction associated with the role-based user account, at least one peer-to-peer account being assigned to a role corresponding to a selling operation in the transaction, the role-based user account acting as a controlling account for the transaction performed using the plurality of peer-to-peer accounts, the role-based user account having a control option to accept or reject the selling operation assigned to the at least one peer-to-peer account.