People In Common Identification With Group Visibility
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Solution Overview
Problem
Social networking platforms only consider publicly visible connections when identifying people in common between users, leading to missed valuable connections and potential privacy setting violations.
Innovation Solution
A system that determines both publicly visible and semi-publicly visible connections, while respecting security permissions, to provide a comprehensive list of people in common from the perspective of the first user, including a truncated set based on affinity and interaction limitations.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If only publicly visible connections are considered when identifying people in common, then privacy settings are respected and security permissions are maintained, but valuable connections are missed and user discovery is limited
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments connections into different visibility categories (publicly visible, semi-publicly visible to group members, and private). The system processes each segment separately, applying appropriate privacy rules to each, thereby maintaining privacy compliance while discovering connections across multiple segments that would otherwise be missed.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent adds a new dimension to connection visibility by introducing semi-public connections visible to specific groups. This creates a intermediate state between fully public and fully private connections, allowing users to discover valuable connections while maintaining controlled visibility through group-based permissions.
2Adaptability or versatility
If semi-publicly visible connections are included in people in common, then user discovery and enjoyment are enhanced, but computation complexity and storage requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a truncated set mechanism that returns only a subset (e.g., top 10) of people in common results. This partial action approach provides sufficient user discovery capability for practical purposes while significantly reducing computation and storage requirements compared to calculating and storing all possible connections.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent changes the parameter of result set size from complete to truncated. By controlling the output parameter (number of results returned), the system balances between providing comprehensive user discovery and maintaining computational efficiency, allowing the same system to serve both exploratory and performance-critical scenarios.
Data Source
AI summary
A method for identifying people in common (PIC) between two users on a social networking service includes: receiving a request for a set of people in common between a first user and a second user on a social networking service, determining publicly visible connections of the first user and the second user from the social networking service; determining connections visible only to members of an accessible group of the first user and the second user from the social networking service, access to the connections visible only to members of the accessible group being controlled by security permissions; determining a set of people in common between the first user and the second user using the publicly visible connections, the connections and using security permissions from a perspective of the first user; and providing the set of people in common to the first user.