System and Method for dynamically disabling Privacy list during Multi-person Chat in a Chatting Tool (20-Aug-2009)
The disclosure provides an improved methodology and system for dynamically disabling the privacy feature during a multi-person/conference chat. It provides the users participating in a conference chat an opportunity to disable their privacy list feature for other users present in the same ongoing conference chat. This method of disabling could be static or dynamic depending on the preference of the user.
System and Method for dynamically disabling Privacy list during Multi -person Chat in a Chatting Tool
Users of computers tend to use their computers to communicate with one another through a variety of different communication mechanisms. One of the traditional techniques for communication is to send e-mails to one another or among a group of individuals. This is effective for passing on information but lacks the ability for timely effective interaction among the users that would have occurred in a face-to-face discussion.
In many cases users of different computers interconnected to a network prefer to communicate in real time with one another. In order to facilitate real time communication, instant messaging communication tools may be used.
As instant messaging is becoming a very valuable tool for both personal and business communications, it is imperative that it allows for the privacy needs of the individual user. The user, thus, has an ability to select his or her online visibility without compromising his ability to use the chat functions. To facilitate this, the instant messaging system includes means by which a user's presence and online status is not broadcast to an Instant Messaging community until the user chooses to allow or enable such broadcast. Additionally, the user is enabled to selectively exclude other specified users from seeing the user's online status. A 'preferences' screen is
.
The disclosure provides an improved methodology and system for dynamically disabling the
person/conference chat.
Privacy List is a feature built in most of the chatting tools which enables the user to perform either of the 2 functions -
Broadcast user's online status to only the persons present in the list.
OR
Broadcast user's online status to everybody except those present in the list.
The Privacy list for each user is stored in the Chatting Server in the form of a table
1
presented to a user to enable the user to input his or her privacy preferences
privacy feature during a multi-
Figure 1
Figure 1 illustrates the communication flow between IM Clients and its associated IM Server.
A bitmap is included in the IM Database server. In the bitmap, an "X" indicates blocked state. The 2nd column indicates an enablement for the broadcast function.
As shown, Client A is enabled for broadcast communication with client B and not with client C.
Client B would see the broadcast when client A becomes active because Client A had previously enables Client B for broadcast reception. Client C would not see the broadcast when Client A becomes active because Client A had previously disabled Client C from broadcast reception.
Problem Description
2
Figure 2
As seen from figure 2, TIM is shown as online to TED (online depicted as a dark circle next to TIM in...
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