Patent ID: 8117265

Claim:
A method of providing online presence information: maintaining, on one or more computers, a list of people that is known to a user; determining, at the one or more computers, that a person is known to the user based, at least in part, on one or more actions performed by the user on one or more messages received by the user from the person, the actions including one or more of (1) saving the one or more messages from the person; (2) printing the one or more messages from the person; (3) moving the one or more messages from the person from an inbox to a folder; and (4) leaving the one or more messages from the person open for a predetermined period of time; in response to determining that the person is known to the user, adding the person to the maintained list; accessing, at the one or more computers, the maintained list of people determined to be known to a user; accessing, at the one or more computers, online presence information for the user; determining, at the one or more computers, a potential receiver of the online presence information; comparing, at the one or more computers, the potential receiver to the accessed list to determine if the potential receiver is included on the list; and determining, at the one or more computers, whether to communicate the online presence information to the potential receiver based on whether the potential receiver is included in the list.