Third-Party Verification of Online Profile Attributes
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing online community platforms lack a trustworthy mechanism to validate profile information across multiple sites, leading to potential trust issues and risks such as identity theft, as they do not independently verify and validate externally maintained profile attributes.
Innovation Solution
A trusted third-party system verifies profile attributes across multiple community sites by collecting data, performing verification, and storing results in a database, which are then indicated on the user's profile pages, allowing users to view the trust status of the information.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If community members maintain profiles with personal information without validation, then users can share more personal data and expand their networks, but trust in the accuracy and authenticity of profile information deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a trusted third-party verification service that acts as an intermediary between profile owners and community members. This verification service independently validates profile attributes (such as education, employment, and personal information) without requiring the profile owner to self-verify, thereby establishing trust while allowing continued information sharing.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs verification actions before users interact with profile information. By pre-validating profile attributes through the trusted third-party service, the system ensures that information is accurate and authentic before it is shared or displayed, preventing trust issues from arising in the first place.
2Reliability
If community sites perform self-validation of user profiles, then validation coverage increases, but trust issues arise because the community site is not a disinterested party
Solution Approach 1:
The patent resolves this contradiction by introducing a disinterested third-party verification service that is independent of both the community site and the profile owners. This intermediary performs validation objectively without conflict of interest, eliminating trust issues while maintaining comprehensive validation coverage across multiple community platforms.
3Device complexity
If no verification mechanism is implemented, then system complexity remains low, but the risk of identity theft and inaccurate information increases
Solution Approach 1:
The trusted third-party verification service acts as a specialized intermediary that handles verification functionality separately from the main community site infrastructure. This modular approach adds verification capability without significantly increasing the complexity of the core system, while effectively mitigating identity theft risks through independent validation.
Solution Approach 2:
The system creates a verified copy of profile information that has been validated by the third-party service. This verified copy can be displayed to users without requiring them to interact with the complex verification process, simplifying the user experience while maintaining security against identity theft and misinformation.
Data Source
AI summary
Independent verification of user profile attributes that are stored on third-party community-based web sites is provided. A user request indicates target profile attributes to verify. Profile attribute data concerning a profile owner is collected from a plurality of community sites. The collected data is verified, and results of the verification process are stored in a database. When a user views verified profile attributes on a page on a community site, the corresponding stored verification status is retrieved, and an indication of the trust status of the profile is output to the user, for example by modifying the displayed web page to display the trust status.