Privacy-safe connection recommendations

A system comprising:

• one or more processors;
• and
• a non-transitory computer readable storage medium comprising instructions that when executed by the one or more processors cause the one or more processors to perform operations comprising:
• determining one-hop profiles using user identifiers associated with a new user, the user identifiers corresponding to potential connections for the new user;
• determining two-hop profiles using one-hop connection information associated with the one-hop profiles;
• determining three-hop profiles using two-hop connection information associated with the two-hop profiles;
• generating an inventory of candidate profiles for recommendation to the new user by sampling profiles from the two-hop profiles and the three-hop profiles;
• generating an inventory value for the inventory of candidate profiles by computing a predefined statistic using attributes of the candidate profiles in the inventory of candidate profiles;
• generating a recommendation set of profiles by incorporating candidate profiles from the inventory of candidate profiles until a value of the predefined statistic computed for the recommendation set of profiles is substantially the same as the inventory value;
• and
• causing presentation of the recommendation set of profiles on a display device of the new user.

A machine-readable non-transitory storage medium having instruction data executable by a machine to cause the machine to perform operations comprising:

• determining one-hop profiles using user identifiers associated with a new user, the user identifiers corresponding to potential connections for the new user;
• determining two-hop profiles using one-hop connection information associated with the one-hop profiles;
• determining three-hop profiles using two-hop connection information associated with the two-hop profiles;
• generating an inventory of candidate profiles for recommendation to the new user by sampling profiles from the two-hop profiles and the three-hop profiles;
• generating an inventory value for the inventory of candidate profiles by computing a predefined statistic using attributes of the candidate profiles in the inventory of candidate profiles;
• generating a recommendation set of profiles by incorporating candidate profiles from the inventory of candidate profiles until a value of the predefined statistic computed for the recommendation set of profiles is substantially the same as the inventory value;
• and
• causing presentation of the recommendation set of profiles on a display device of the new user.