Abstract: A phone application state management mechanism is described. The mechanism adopts the state storage format widely known as “Cookies” to store information in a cross-application standard format. Cookies for multiple users are stored on a single machine that retrieves phone applications using a hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP). Suitable state information for a particular user is automatically retrieved in connection with HTTP requests. Further, by phone based applications can set the values of suitable cookies. An enforced access policy can be used to prevent an application provided by a first legal entity from accessing state information stored by an application provided by another legal entity. The approach can also be used to reduce the passing of telephone identifying information between applications for user identification purposes.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for linking a web based account to a phone based account is described. The method avoids the need to directly reveal account information, e.g. username/password, about one account to the provider of the other. The linking occurs on the web in one embodiment, with a user's browser being redirected from the web site to the web site of the provider of the voice service. The redirection URL will include account linking information. Once the user identifies herself to the web site of the provider of the voice service, the linking information can be stored in the user's phone account as a cookie. When the user access the voice service over the phone, her telephone identifying information can be used to identify her profile. When she visits the phone application corresponding to the web site, the cookie—now including linking information—can be passed to the application to identify the appropriate web account.

Abstract: Two new cache control headers in the cache control header, “post-check” and “pre-check”, enable the display of content from the cache, with a later synchronization of the content performed in the background via a conditional request such as an IMS request. These headers enable the server to define a non-validate time period relative to the cached content's age in which the user will receive content from the cache, a background synchronization period in which the user will receive content from the cache and automatically queue a request for background synchronization thereof, and a validate period in which the cached content may or may not be used, depending on a response to a validation request sent to the server. The content is quickly rendered for the user in the non-validate and background synchronization periods, and the hit count is correct in the background synchronization and validate periods.