Member Avatar for ivirtua

I had an idea to do what many social networks do on my community; like myspace or bebo, you can invite people from your AOL, Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail address books, just by inputing your password and username, then an email will be sent saying xxxx has invited you to this site.
How can I implement this and what is necessary?

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Safe, practical way to implement "invite from address book"

The secure, maintainable approach is to use each provider's contacts API with OAuth consent instead of asking users for their mailbox passwords. Register an app with providers, request a contacts scope, have the user consent, then fetch only the fields needed for invitations. See the OAuth 2.0 overview [https://oauth.net/2/], Google People API [https://developers.google.com/people], and Microsoft Graph contacts docs [] for current endpoints and scopes.

Implementation checklist

  1. Register your app with each provider and list the exact redirect URI your site will use.
  2. Use OAuth to obtain a token with a contacts scope and fetch a limited set of fields (name, email).
  3. Normalize contacts client-side/server-side and present a clear UI with checkboxes and the exact invitation text.
  4. Only send invites to addresses the user explicitly selected; log consent and actions for auditing.
  5. Send mail via a verified transactional provider or properly configured SMTP with SPF/DKIM; rate-limit sends to avoid being blacklisted.

Privacy, legal and anti-abuse notes

Do not store provider passwords or scrape webmail interfaces. Minimize stored personal data, delete imported lists after use unless the user opts in to save them, and show the user exactly what will be sent. Follow anti-spam rules (CAN-SPAM, GDPR where applicable), include an unsubscribe option, and add throttles/recaptcha to prevent abuse.

Fallbacks and cautions

If a provider lacks a stable API, offer CSV/vCard import as a user-driven fallback. Third-party "connectors" exist, but vet any library for security, maintenance, and terms-of-service compliance. This thread touched on both commercial and open-source routes; regardless of source, the OAuth + API pattern is the safer, future-proof option (credit to and for early discussion points).

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Member Avatar for cyfm

Their are several commerical products which you can use in conjuntion with your website these can be bought for a price and should work with most forum software, phpbb2, ipb, vbull etc. I'm not sure how you'd go around developing your own invite system but im guessing you have to pay microsoft for access to the servers so the contact list can be used.

Member Avatar for ivirtua

Their are several commerical products which you can use in conjuntion with your website these can be bought for a price and should work with most forum software, phpbb2, ipb, vbull etc. I'm not sure how you'd go around developing your own invite system but im guessing you have to pay microsoft for access to the servers so the contact list can be used.

You dont have to pay micrsoft
a) You KNOW we got a system in place
b) You KNOW its possible
c) ITS OPEN SOURCE
d) Dont lie about your computer spec ;)


If anyone would like source code fromk our developers, do contact me, we developed it open source :mrgreen:

Member Avatar for cyfm

You dont have to pay micrsoft
a) You KNOW we got a system in place
b) You KNOW its possible
c) ITS OPEN SOURCE
d) Dont lie about your computer spec ;)


If anyone would like source code fromk our developers, do contact me, we developed it open source :mrgreen:

a). I know we have a system in place (but their are other people here)
b). I do know its possible, did I say it was'nt?
c). I also know its open source! But you can get paid versions
d). Did I lie about my specs? Acording to the 'About this Mac' feature on my
E). Maybe you do have to pay microsoft or maybe you don't, however I'm pretty sure I saw a commerical licesence out their for one of these 'address book' software packages in which you had to pay a little extra to get hotmail emails (maybe they were trying to cash in a bit more money).

Member Avatar for ivirtua

Replying to my topic that was old anyway is just cocky... especially when you know we resolved the issue :confused:

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