Patent Document ID: 8121999
Application ID: 12683411

Base Claim:
1. A method for searching a database that includes private social network data, comprising: providing one or more databases including a plurality of database entries, a first portion of the database entries including private social network data and a second portion including non-social network data that is publicly accessible on the World Wide Web; associating a plurality of permission rules with the first portion of database entries, the plurality of permission rules individually defining access rights to a respective subset of the private social network data; receiving a keyword search request from a search request user; receiving auntication data associated with the user, wherein the auntication data identifies access rights of the user to a subset of the private social network data according to at least one of the permission rules; searching the one or more databases or a keyword index thereof using one or more keywords received in the keyword search request and generating a search result comprising a plurality of search result items; determining a hierarchy for the search result items; displaying at least a portion of the search results items according to the hierarchy; and determining whether the user has access rights to a particular subset Of the private social network data and wherein if the user has access rights to particular subset of private social network data, using at least a portion of the particular subset of private social network data in the step of (i) searching the one or more databases, (ii) determining the hierarchy, and/or (iii) displaying the search result items.

---

Claim 13:
13. the method as in claim 1 , further comprising displaying an advertisement in association with the search results, wherein the advertisement is selected at least in part based on the one or more keywords received in the search request.