ZONE CLASSIFICATION OF ELECTRONIC MAIL MESSAGES

• US 20110219081A1
• Filed: 03/08/2010
• Published: 09/08/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 03/08/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Parthasarathy, Krishna Kumar, Panasyuk, Anatoliy
• Granted Patent: US 9,838,349 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/206
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/18 Commands or executable codes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/212 using filtering or selective blocking
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/42 Mailbox-related aspects, e.g. synchronisation of mailboxes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/48 Message addressing, e.g. address format or anonymous messages, aliases
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0236 Filtering by address, protocol, port number or service, e.g. IP-address or URL

Abstract

Embodiments of the invention relate to techniques for classifying received e-mails and e-mails to be sent. In some embodiments, a set of e-mail zones may be defined and e-mails may be classified into one of the plurality of zones. An indication of the zone into which an e-mail has been classified may be displayed in a visual display of the e-mail.

Claims

1. A method performed by an electronic mail (e-mail) client application program executing on a computer having at least one tangible memory that stores processor-executable instructions for the client application program and at last one processor that executes the processor-executable instructions, the method comprising:

receiving an e-mail message from an e-mail server that identifies an e-mail address associated with the client application program as an intended recipient, the e-mail message including classification information identifying one of a plurality of pre-defined e-mail zones into which the e-mail message has been classified;

accessing the classification information from the e-mail message;

determining, from the classification information, the one of the plurality of pre-defined e-mail zones in which the e-mail message has been classified;

accessing policy information stored in the at least one tangible memory to determine whether any policy action is to be performed in connection with the e-mail message;

when it is determined that a policy action is to be performed in connection with the e-mail message, performing the policy action; and

visually displaying the e-mail message, wherein the visual display of the e-mail message includes at least one indication of the one of the plurality of pre-defined e-mail zones into which the e-mail message has been classified.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one indication of the one of the one of the plurality of pre-defined e-mail zones into which the e-mail message has been classified comprises at least one icon associated with the one of the one of the plurality of pre-defined e-mail zones into which the e-mail message has been classified.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one indication of the one of the one of the plurality of pre-defined e-mail zones into which the e-mail message has been classified comprises at least one text label specifying the one of the one of the plurality of pre-defined e-mail zones into which the e-mail message has been classified.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the e-mail message comprises at least one header and at least one message body, wherein the at least one message body comprises the contents of the e-mail message and wherein the at least one header comprises the classification information.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the act of accessing policy information stored in the at least one tangible memory to determine whether any policy action is to be performed in connection with the e-mail message comprises determining whether any policy action is to be performed based on the one of a plurality of pre-defined e-mail zones identified by the classification information.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein performing the plurality of pre-defined e-mail zones comprise a trusted partner zone, an intra-organization zone, a restricted zone, and a general internet zone.

7. At least one computer-readable medium encoded with processor-executable instructions for an e-mail server application program that, when executed on a computer having at least one tangible memory and at least one processor perform a method comprising:

receiving an e-mail message;

accessing a set of classification rules;

based on the set of classification rules, classifying the e-mail message into one of a plurality of predefined e-mail zones;

adding to the e-mail message information identifying the one of the plurality of pre-defined e-mail zones; and

transferring the e-mail message to an e-mail client associated with an intended recipient of the e-mail message.

8. The at least one computer-readable medium of claim 7, wherein the method further comprises acts of:

determining whether any policy actions are to be applied to the e-mail message based on the zone classification; and

when it is determined that a policy action is to be performed in connection with the e-mail message, performing the policy action; and

9. The at least one computer-readable medium of claim 8, wherein the act of determining whether any policy actions are to be applied to the e-mail message based on the zone classification further comprises accessing policy information stored on the computer that specifies the policy associated with the zone classification.

10. The at least one computer-readable medium of claim 9, wherein the policy information is configurable by a user of the computer.

11. The at least one computer-readable medium of claim 10, wherein the user is a network administrator.

12. The at least one computer-readable medium of claim 7, wherein the act of adding to the e-mail message information identifying the one of the plurality of pre-defined e-mail zones further comprises adding information indicating the one of the plurality of pre-defined e-mail zones to a message header of the e-mail.

13. The at least one computer-readable medium of claim 7, wherein the set of classification rules are stored on the computer.

14. A computer having at least one tangible memory that stores processor-executable instructions for an e-mail client application program and at least one processor that executes the processor-executable instructions to:

receive user input specifying at least one recipient e-mail address for an e-mail message to be sent;

send the at least one recipient e-mail address to at least one e-mail server; and

in response to sending the at least one recipient e-mail address, receive at least one zone classification indicating one of a plurality of pre-defined zones into which the e-mail message is classified.

15. The computer of claim 14, wherein the at least one processor executes the processor-executable instructions to:

determine whether a policy action is to be taken based on the at least one zone classification; and

when it is determined that the policy action is to be taken, performing the policy action.

16. The computer of claim 15, wherein the at least one processor determine whether a policy action is to be taken based on the at least one zone classification by accessing policy information stored on the computer.

17. The computer of claim 14, wherein the one of a plurality of pre-defined zones into which the e-mail message is classified comprises one of a trusted partner zone, an intra-organization zone, a restricted zone, or a general internet zone

18. The computer of claim 14, wherein the at least one processor is configured to display an indication of the at least zone classification in the e-mail message.

19. The method of claim 15, wherein performing the policy action comprises blocking sending of the e-mail message.

20. The method of claim 15, wherein performing the policy action comprises prompting the user.