System and method of creating provisional account profiles

A method of generating a provisional user profile for an account in a database comprising accounts of a communication service that is implemented over a network, the method comprising:

• detecting a communication between a first user not linked to an account of the communication service and a second user linked to an account of the communication service;
• in response to detecting the communication, creating a database record representing a provisional user profile for the first user not linked to an account of the communication service in the database;
• collecting private information of the first user by accessing contact information of the second user held at the communication service and adding the collected private information to the created database record representing the provisional user profile;
• collecting public information potentially corresponding to the first user from a source external to the communication service;
• upon collecting the public information, using the collected private information to validate that at least a portion of the collected public information correctly corresponds to the first user;
• upon validating that the at least portion of the collected public information correctly corresponds to the first user, adding the validated at least a portion of the collected public information to the database record representing the created provisional user profile;
• and
• subsequently, when the first user joins the communication service, allocating the database record representing the provisional user profile having the collected private information and the validated at least a portion of the public information to an account belonging to the first user.

A computing device, comprising:

• a processor;
• and
• a memory operatively coupled to the processor, the memory having instructions executable by the processor to cause the computing device to:
• upon detecting a communication between a first user not linked to an account of the communication service and a second user linked to an account of the communication service, create a database record representing a provisional user profile for the first user in a database;
• access the database to collect private information of the first user from contact information of the second user held at the communication service;
• access a source external to the communication service to collect public information potentially corresponding to the first user;
• validate, using the collected private information, that at least a portion of the collected public information correctly corresponds to the first user;
• upon validating that the at least a portion of the collected public information correctly corresponds to the first user, modify data of the created database record representing the provisional user profile to include the validated at least a portion of the collected public information;
• and
• subsequently, when the first user joins the communication service, allocate the created provisional user profile having the validated at least a portion of the collected public information to an account belonging to the first user.