A method for providing personalized, shared bookmarks that determines which bookmarks are to be shared with a given user based at least in part on an interest profile associated with that user. The interest file can be used to define important other users, based on attributes, titles, or names associated with those other users. Shareable bookmarks defined by important other users are provided to the local user through the local navigation program. The list of important persons used to define which bookmarks should be shared may be determined in various specific ways. An interest profile may be automatically maintained containing a list of persons that are important for a specific user. The list may be automatically calculated based on information such as recent email traffic, and/or can be defined manually. Privacy issues may be addressed by enabling a user to prevent certain bookmarks they define locally from being shared.