Patent ID: 8245283

Claim:
A method comprising: regulating crossing, by an avatar, of a region boundary of a region in a virtual universe, the crossing of the region boundary comprising entering the region by the avatar or exiting the region by the avatar, the regulating comprising: providing said avatar with a public key pair of indicia for secure communication with a region authority associated with said region, and for secure communication with a trusted third party, the region authority regulating access of the avatar to one or more regions in the virtual universe, and the trusted third party storing a persona profile of the avatar, protected with said public key pair, said persona profile comprising one or more attributes describing the avatar; providing, by the avatar, credentials to the region authority, the credentials indicating permission of the region authority to obtain the persona profile from the trusted third party; responsive to the region authority providing the credentials to the trusted third party, the trusted third party obtaining the persona profile and providing the persona profile to the region authority; and determining by the region authority whether to deny permission of the avatar to cross the region boundary based on the one or more attributes of the persona profile provided by the trusted third party.