Offline Names Addressing Online Community Web Pages

Abstract

Avoidance criteria are obtained and used to help prevent offline encounters between members of an online community by limiting online communications between members who share some aspect of offline life, thereby reducing the risk of offline encounters that could otherwise arise from online interaction. For each member of the online community, a system provider obtains one or more avoidance criteria ratified by the member and associates them with the member. Avoidance criteria include aspects of the member's offline life, such as geographic regions in which the member resides or plans to travel, organizations in which the member is active, and other interests and activities of the member. Respective avoidance criteria of different members are compared to determine whether the members share at least one avoidance criterion. Online communication between members who share an avoidance criterion is automatically limited.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.