System and method for identifying and filtering junk e-mail messages or spam based on URL content
First Claim
1. A method for identifying e-mail messages received over a digital communications network as unwanted junk e-mail or spam, comprising:
- receiving an e-mail message;
identifying at least one of contact data and link data within content of the received e-mail message;
accessing a blacklist comprising at least one of contact information and link information associated with previously-identified spam; and
determining whether the received e-mail message is spam based on the accessing.
3 Assignments
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Accused Products
Abstract
A method for identifying e-mail messages as being unwanted junk or spam. The method includes receiving an e-mail message and then identifying contact and link data, such as URL information, within the content of the received e-mail message. A blacklist including contact information and/or link information previously associated with spam is accessed, and the e-mail message is determined to be spam or to likely be spam based on the contents of the blacklist. The contact or link data from the received e-mail is compared to similar information in the blacklist to find a match, such as by comparing URL information from e-mail content with URLs found previously in spam. If a match is not identified, the URL information from the e-mail message is processed to classify the URL as spam or “bad.” The content indicated by the URL information is accessed and spam classifiers or statistical tools are applied.
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Citations
17 Claims
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1. A method for identifying e-mail messages received over a digital communications network as unwanted junk e-mail or spam, comprising:
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receiving an e-mail message;
identifying at least one of contact data and link data within content of the received e-mail message;
accessing a blacklist comprising at least one of contact information and link information associated with previously-identified spam; and
determining whether the received e-mail message is spam based on the accessing. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
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8. A computer-based method for identifying e-mail messages as spam based on Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) within the content of the messages, comprising:
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providing a list of URLs determined to be related to unwanted e-mail messages or spam sponsored content;
receiving a query associated with an e-mail message, the query comprising URL information;
comparing at least a portion of the URL information in the query to the list of URLs; and
reporting a result of the comparing for use in identifying the e-mail message as spam. - View Dependent Claims (9, 10, 11)
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12. A method for providing a set of Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) for use in determining whether a received e-mail message is unwanted junk or spam, comprising:
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accessing a plurality of e-mail messages identified as spam;
processing content of the e-mail messages to identify one or more URLs;
determining whether the identified URLs are spam-related; and
in memory, storing a bad URL file comprising the URLs determined to be spam-related. - View Dependent Claims (13, 14, 15, 16, 17)
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Specification