| US 7,549,125 B2 | ||
| Information picker | ||
| Melissa W. Dunn, Woodinville, Wash. (US); Jonathan D. Perlow, Seattle, Wash. (US); Vivien Park, Seattle, Wash. (US); Kim Cameron, Bellevue, Wash. (US); and John-Anthony Owens, Seattle, Wash. (US) | ||
| Assigned to Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, Wash. (US) | ||
| Filed on Oct. 23, 2003, as Appl. No. 10/692,257. | ||
| Prior Publication US 2005/0091072 A1, Apr. 28, 2005 | ||
| Int. Cl. G06F 3/00 (2006.01) | ||
| U.S. Cl. 715—739 | 22 Claims |
| 1. In a computer that stores contact information and that runs one or more applications, a method for controlling how the
contact information is provided to the one or more applications, the method comprising:
detecting a request from an application that is running on the computer for contact information corresponding to a particular
user that is logged on to the computer;
upon detecting the request and prior to providing the application with contact information,
determining whether the application is authorized to access the contact information, and
upon determining that the application is authorized to access the contact information, identifying available contact personas
associated with the particular user, each of the contact personas comprising contact information about the user;
after detecting the request and prior to providing the application with the requested contact information, informing the user
that the application is seeking certain contact information by presenting to the user a list of a plurality of selectable
contact personas that are each associated with the user and that each contain different contact information about the user,
and presenting to the user a privacy value proposition to inform the user how the application will use the contact information;
receiving a user selection of a contact persona from the list of the plurality of contact personas, wherein the user selection
of the contact persona grants access to the application to access the selected contact persona;
determining an appropriate format in which the contact information corresponding to the selected contact persona is to be
presented to the application; and
providing the application with the contact information corresponding to the selected contact persona.
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