Patent ID: 8898751

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving a request from a user to use a third-party authentication service to authenticate the user to a service provided by an online service provider subsystem; in response to the receiving of the request, directing the user to authenticate to the third-party authentication service; responsive to the directing, receiving a third-party user identifier for the user from the third-party authentication service; and responsive to the receiving of the third-party user identifier, requiring the user to verify an identity of the user, the requiring comprising: generating a unique token based at least in part on the received third-party user identifier, wherein the online service provider subsystem maintains data representative of the unique token, the third-party user identifier, and a link between the unique token and the third-party user identifier; generating a Uniform Resource Locator (“URL”) that includes the unique token and an address of an authorization invocation page used to verify the identity of the user; sending the URL to a user device associated with the user; receiving, from the user device, a request to access the authorization invocation page, the request including the URL; providing the authorization invocation page to the user device; receiving, from the user device by way of the authorization invocation page, login credentials specific to the user and the service; and validating the login credentials; and responsive to the requiring, authorizing, based on the verified identity of the user, use of the third-party user identifier to authenticate the user to the service; wherein the online service provider subsystem performs the receiving of the request, the directing of the user to authenticate, the receiving of the third-party user identifier, the requiring of the user to verify the identity of the user, and the authorizing of the use of the third-party user identifier.