METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR UPDATING A PRESENCE ATTRIBUTE

A Presence Server receives presence information associated with a Presentity, wherein the presence information comprises one or more presence attributes and the Presentity is associated with a Presence Source and a first Watcher. The Presence Server further receives a request from a second Watcher to view a presence attribute of the one or more presence attributes. The Presence Server may further receive a message from the first Watcher specifying a desire to be notified of who is watching the Presentity, presence attributes being filtered, and/or throttling or deferring of presence attribute updates being implemented by the Presence Server. The Presence Server conveys to the first Watcher watcher notification information that informs of Watchers watching the Presentity, what is being watched, presence attributes being filtered, and/or throttling or deferring of presence attribute updates. The Presentity then determines whether to publish a presence attribute update based on the watcher notification information.