FILTERING OUTBOUND EMAIL MESSAGES USING RECIPIENT REPUTATION
First Claim
Patent Images
1. A method for determining whether a sender of an email message is a spammer, the method comprising:
- accumulating information pertaining to recipients of email messages;
determining recipient reputations based on the accumulated information for the recipients of the email messages;
determining a sender indicator for the sender of the email message based on the recipient reputations of the recipients of the email message;
determining whether the sender is a spammer based on the sender indicator; and
filtering the email message based on the determination of whether the sender is a spammer.
1 Assignment
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A method for filtering email messages by using reputations associated with recipients of the email messages to determine if senders of the email messages are spammers and correspondingly if the email messages are spam. Recipient reputations may be established based on counts of unique good senders and unique bad senders sending email messages to the recipients or by comparing sender email activity to bad recipients.
-
Citations
22 Claims
-
1. A method for determining whether a sender of an email message is a spammer, the method comprising:
-
accumulating information pertaining to recipients of email messages; determining recipient reputations based on the accumulated information for the recipients of the email messages; determining a sender indicator for the sender of the email message based on the recipient reputations of the recipients of the email message; determining whether the sender is a spammer based on the sender indicator; and filtering the email message based on the determination of whether the sender is a spammer. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19)
-
-
20. A method for determining whether a sender of an email message is a spammer, the method comprising:
-
compiling a list of bad recipients, the list of the bad recipients comprising email addresses of recipients considered likely to receive spam email messages; storing sender activity data pertaining to email messages sent to the bad recipients; accumulating a first set of counts of the email messages sent by the sender to the bad recipients over a given time interval using the sender activity data; accumulating a second set of counts of unique bad recipients to whom the sender has sent the email messages over the given time interval using the sender activity data; making a first determination whether the sender is a spammer by comparing the first set of counts to a first threshold; making a second determination whether the sender is a spammer by comparing the second set of counts to a second threshold; filtering the email message based on at least one of the first determination and the second determination of whether the sender is a spammer; and updating the list of the bad recipients based on at least one of the first determination and the second determination.
-
-
21. A method for determining whether a sender of an email message is a spammer, the method comprising:
-
compiling a list of bad recipients, the list of the bad recipients comprising email addresses of recipients considered likely to receive spam email messages; storing sender activity data pertaining to email messages sent to the bad recipients; accumulating counts of the email messages sent by the sender to the bad recipients over a given time interval using the sender activity data; determining whether the sender is a spammer by comparing the counts to a threshold; filtering the email message based on the determination of whether the sender is a spammer; and updating the list of the bad recipients based on the determination of whether the sender is a spammer.
-
-
22. A method for determining whether a sender of an email message is a spammer, the method comprising:
-
compiling a list of bad recipients, the list of the bad recipients comprising email addresses of recipients considered likely to receive spam email messages; storing sender activity data pertaining to email messages sent to the bad recipients; accumulating counts of unique bad recipients to whom the sender has sent the email messages over a given time interval using the sender activity data; determining whether the sender is a spammer by comparing the counts to a threshold; filtering the email message based on the determination of whether the sender is a spammer; and updating the list of the bad recipients based on the determination of whether the sender is a spammer.
-
Specification