Information sharing in a collaborative, privacy conscious environment

A computing system, comprising:

• a processor;
• and
• a memory operatively coupled to the processor, the memory including instructions executable by the processor to cause the computing system to:
• receive a query from a first collaborator, wherein a relationship between the first collaborator and a second collaborator is maintained by a content management system;
• in response to receiving the query, query a first shard corresponding to the first collaborator to generate local query results and federate the query and issue a federated search request to a second shard corresponding to the second collaborator based on the query from the first collaborator to the second collaborator;
• determine remote query results at the second shard belonging to the second collaborator in response to the issued federated search request;
• and
• upon receiving an input to release the remote query results from content on the second shard owned by the second collaborator to the first collaborator, aggregate the local and remote search results and return the aggregated first and second query results to the first collaborator.

A computer readable medium bearing computer executable instructions which, when executed on a computing system comprising at least a processor, carry out a method for sharing information in a collaborative, privacy conscious environment, the method comprising:

• receiving a query from a first collaborator at a content management system, wherein a relationship between the first collaborator and a second collaborator is maintained by the content management system;
• in response to receiving the query, determining first and second query results in content stored at a first shard corresponding to the first collaborator and at a second shard belonging to the second collaborator in response to the query, respectively, wherein the first and second query results are relevant to a search based on the received query in the content stored at the first and second shards, respectively;
• and
• upon receiving an input releasing the second query results from the second shard in response to an indication from the second collaborator, aggregating the determined first and second query results and returning the aggregated first and second query results to the first collaborator.