Visibility Profiles for Real-Time Communication Privacy
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional communication applications lack effective privacy and accessibility control, often disrupting communication when users attempt to configure their online interactions, leading to limitations in personalized communication services.
Innovation Solution
The implementation of visibility profiles that allow users to manage their online presence by creating lists for selective visibility or invisibility, enabling them to customize their appearance to different groups of friends based on situations, locations, or times, using a client-server system to broadcast updates and filter notifications.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Object-affected harmful factors
If users configure privacy settings in conventional communication applications, then privacy control is improved, but communication functionality deteriorates (communication is stopped or interrupted)
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the user's online presence into multiple visibility profiles (e.g., work profile, personal profile, hidden profile) that can be selectively applied. Each profile contains specific visibility settings for different contacts or contact groups, allowing granular privacy control without disrupting overall communication functionality. Users can switch between profiles based on context, maintaining both privacy and communication effectiveness.
Solution Approach 2:
The system dynamically adjusts visibility settings based on the selected profile and context. When a user logs in or switches profiles, the system automatically applies the corresponding visibility rules without interrupting communication. This dynamic adaptation allows privacy control to be enacted without stopping or interrupting communication, as the system seamlessly transitions between different visibility states.
2Adaptability or versatility
If conventional applications provide personalized communication services, then user personalization is improved, but configurability and privacy control deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
The visibility profile system serves multiple functions: it provides personalized communication services, enables granular privacy control, and offers flexible configurability all through a unified mechanism. The same profile system that enables personalization also provides the configurability and privacy control that were previously limited, making the application versatile across multiple user needs simultaneously.
Solution Approach 2:
Users pre-configure multiple visibility profiles with specific settings for different situations, contacts, or contact groups before needing them. This preliminary configuration allows the system to automatically apply appropriate privacy and visibility settings without requiring complex real-time decisions, simplifying operation while maintaining high configurability and personalization.
3Object-affected harmful factors
If users establish privacy settings in conventional applications, then privacy protection is improved, but accessibility control deteriorates (communication application becomes virtually useless)
Solution Approach 1:
The system applies different visibility qualities to different contacts or contact groups based on the selected profile. Instead of a blanket privacy setting that blocks all communication, users can specify exactly which contacts should see their online status and which should not. This local differentiation maintains privacy protection while preserving accessibility control, as users can still communicate with anyone but control who can see their presence.
Data Source
AI summary
Visibility profiles associated with a substantially real time messaging environment are disclosed. Additionally, techniques for managing visibility profiles are disclosed, which include associating a first visibility profile with a first situation, and associating a second visibility profile with a second situation, A visibility profile indicates a set of friends, of a particular user, that are allowed, or disallowed, to view the particular user as available when the particular user is in the associated situation. A situation refers to one or more of a particular time period that a user is logged in, a particular location of the user, a particular device that the user is currently using, or a particular log-in that the user is currently using. Visibility profiles are used to manage the appearance of a user to other users/friends for communication using applications such as instant messaging, electronic mail, web-based mail programs, or other types of data communication exchange applications.