Degrees of separation for handling communications
First Claim
1. A method for handling a communication from a sender to an intended recipient, the method comprising:
- receiving a communication from a sender, wherein the communication is directed to an intended recipient;
identifying the sender of the communication;
identifying the intended recipient of the communication;
determining whether the sender and the intended recipient are linked by less than a threshold number of degrees of separation; and
displaying an interface to the sender prior to displaying the communication to the sender when the sender and the intended recipient are not linked by less than the threshold number of degrees of separation, wherein the interface comprises an interface element that allows the intended recipient to indicate that the communication should be displayed.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A sender'"'"'s degrees of separation from a recipient may be used to aid in spam filtering or to otherwise handle a communication. The “degrees of separation” represent a metric used to quantify whether/how the recipient is linked to the sender through intermediary people or other entities. For example, a recipient may know a first user (first degree of separation) and the first user may know a second user (second degree of separation) who knows the sender of an e-mail. In this case, the sender is separated from the recipient by two degrees of separation (by two other contacts). A level of “trust” or “legitimacy” about a sender'"'"'s communication can be inferred by looking at whether the sender is linked to an intended recipient. Typically, user contact lists (e.g., address book, buddy list, and/or white list) are evaluated to determine the number of degrees (or hops) are required to link or relate two users.
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Citations
38 Claims
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1. A method for handling a communication from a sender to an intended recipient, the method comprising:
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receiving a communication from a sender, wherein the communication is directed to an intended recipient;
identifying the sender of the communication;
identifying the intended recipient of the communication;
determining whether the sender and the intended recipient are linked by less than a threshold number of degrees of separation; and
displaying an interface to the sender prior to displaying the communication to the sender when the sender and the intended recipient are not linked by less than the threshold number of degrees of separation, wherein the interface comprises an interface element that allows the intended recipient to indicate that the communication should be displayed. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17)
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18. A computer-usable medium storing a computer program for handling a communication from a sender to an intended recipient, the computer program comprising instructions for causing a computer to:
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receive a communication from a sender, wherein the communication is directed to an intended recipient;
identify the sender of the communication;
identify the intended recipient of the communication;
determine whether the sender and the intended recipient are linked by less than a threshold number of degrees of separation; and
display an interface to the sender prior to displaying the communication to the sender when the sender and the intended recipient are not linked by less than the threshold number of degrees of separation, wherein the interface comprises an interface element that allows the intended recipient to indicate that the communication should be displayed. - View Dependent Claims (19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34)
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35. An apparatus for handling a communication from a sender to an intended recipient, the apparatus comprising:
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means for receiving a communication from a sender, wherein the communication is directed to an intended recipient;
means for identifying the sender of the communication;
means for identifying the intended recipient of the communication;
means for determining whether the sender and the intended recipient are linked by less than a threshold number of degrees of separation; and
means for displaying an interface to the sender prior to displaying the communication to the sender when the sender and the intended recipient are not linked by less than the threshold number of degrees of separation, wherein the interface comprises an interface element that allows the intended recipient to indicate that the communication should be displayed. - View Dependent Claims (36, 37, 38)
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Specification