Patent ID: 7673015

Claim:
An information-processing apparatus operated by a user to carry out communications through a network, said information-processing apparatus comprising: means for transmitting user-disclosure information to an other information-processing apparatus, said user-disclosure information including a number of other users utilizing said information-processing apparatus; means for receiving other user-disclosure information from the other information-processing apparatus; means for controlling a process to display said other user-disclosure information received by said means for receiving; means for requesting a connection to said other information-processing apparatus in accordance with a received user operation; means for producing a determination result indicating that said connection requested by said means for requesting to said other information-processing apparatus is authorized or not authorized by said other information-processing apparatus based on a response received from said other information-processing apparatus based on said transmitted user-disclosure information; means for transmitting image and voice data of said user to said other information-processing apparatus and receiving image and voice data of an other user from said other information-processing apparatus in case said determination result produced by said means for producing said determination result indicates that said connection with said other information-processing apparatus is authorized by said other information-processing apparatus; and means for synthesizing a display image based on image and voice data received from said other information-processing apparatus and a content.