US Patent 8050690 Location based presence and privacy management

A method and system for providing location based presence status and enhancing location privacy management in a mobile, instant messaging or social networking environment. A user specifies or saves their favorite locations (e.g. home, work, school, or particular business or point of interest locations), and specifies or selects names and/or categories to be shared for each user-specified location. In addition, the system provides multiple sharing levels for sharing multiple types of location contextual information. When user's current location corresponds to user-specified locations, location based presence status is provided to specified contacts according to the sharing level settings, and provides user the option to share location contextual information without sharing location coordinates of the user. When user is driving, location based presence status is updated accordingly, and when user is at other business or POI locations, corresponding location contextual information is shared based on user's settings for each sharing level.