Patent Document ID: 7478078
Application ID: 10867610

Base Claim:
1. A method of providing information about relationships between individuals, comprising the steps of: receiving, at a computer system for an online social network that manages a member database, a request from a third party computer system that manages a third party database, to identify relationships of an individual who has a record in the third party database, over a computer network, the request including an ID token of the individual; identifying, at the computer system for the online social network, the relationships of the individual using the ID token and records stored in the member database by: (i) generating ID tokens of records stored in the member database, (ii) locating a record stored in the member database having an ID token that matches the ID token of the individual, and (iii) identifying records stored in the member database corresponding to individuals who are related to the individual; and returning, from the computer system for the online social network, an indication of the relationships to the third party computer system over the computer network, the indication of the relationships including ID tokens generated from records stored in the member database corresponding to individuals who are related to the individual; wherein the ID token of the individual and the ID tokens of records stored in the member database are hash values generated using a one-way hash algorithm.

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Claim 5:
5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the ID token of the individual is generated from an e-mail address of the individual.