Patent ID: 7426472

Claim:
A method of connecting businesses through common interests and for facilitating business relationships among businesses comprising: identifying a plurality of businesses to participate in an online business registry; storing business profiles comprising business attributes in an online business registry, wherein each business profile is associated with one of the identified businesses and includes for each identified business one or more market segments associated with the identified business, a corresponding customer list for each of said market segments, one or more business functions associated with each of said market segments, wherein the business attributes corresponding to each of the market segments associated with a stored business profile are classified into one of a plurality of access levels; responsive to a query from an inquiring business, searching said online business registry to locate at least one business having a business profile including at least one business attributes corresponding to said query; for each of the market segments associated with the inquiring business, determining whether the inquiring business and at least one located business are competitors in said market segment based upon a comparison of customer lists associated with the market segment and associated business functions; establishing at least one communications link between said inquiring business and said located business according to at least one business attribute of said business profile of said located business; and providing access to the inquiring business to at least a portion of the business attributes of the located business, wherein access to the business attributes of said located business corresponding to one of said market segments is restricted to less than all of the plurality of access levels if the located business and the inquiring business are determined to be competitors in said one of said market segments.