Patent ID: 7606864

Claim:
A method of indicating a preference for receipt of a communication, comprising: storing a profile of a user, the profile identifying multiple contact devices for the user; providing information on the user's profile to a sender of the communication; tracking a communications presence of each contact device for the user, the tracking including determining the availability of each contact device for the user, the determining including: retrieving an Internet dialing number from the profile; querying to determine whether the user has an active IP address based on the Internet dialing number; determining that an active IP address associated with the user exists when an Internet dialing number/IP address pair includes the retrieved Internet dialing number; and retrieving the IP address from the Internet dialing number/IP address pair; and providing a communication receipt preference to the sender of the communication, the communication receipt preference indicating the user's preference for receipt of the communication at one of the multiple and available communications devices.