Managing electronic messages using contact information
First Claim
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1. A system for managing the delivery of an electronic message, the system comprising:
- a data storage device comprising at least one computer-readable medium;
system contact information stored on the data storage device, the system contact information including user contact information for a plurality of users, the user contact information identifying one or more contacts;
an electronic messaging management module configured to access the system contact information and configured to determine whether a challenge-response process should be initiated at least in part based upon the accessed system contact information;
the electronic messaging management module further configured to perform the following;
determine whether the system contact information includes at least one non-rejected contact for the sender;
determine whether the sender has exceeded an activity limit;
determine whether the system contact information includes a minimum number of contacts for the sender; and
determine whether the number of rejected contacts in the system contact information exceeds a threshold; and
the electronic messaging management module further configured to deliver the electronic message to an inbox of a recipient specified in the electronic message if;
the sender is included in at least one non-rejected contact for the system contact information;
the sender has not exceeded an activity limit;
the system contact information includes a minimum number of contacts for the sender; and
the number of rejected contacts in the system contact information does not exceed a threshold.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A system may include an electronic messaging management application that may access contact information. The contact information may include information maintained by one or more system users. The electronic messaging management application may determine how to process an incoming electronic message using at least a portion of the contact information. The electronic messaging management application may determine whether to send a challenge-response message to a sender of an electronic message using at least a portion of the contact information.
136 Citations
18 Claims
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1. A system for managing the delivery of an electronic message, the system comprising:
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a data storage device comprising at least one computer-readable medium; system contact information stored on the data storage device, the system contact information including user contact information for a plurality of users, the user contact information identifying one or more contacts; an electronic messaging management module configured to access the system contact information and configured to determine whether a challenge-response process should be initiated at least in part based upon the accessed system contact information; the electronic messaging management module further configured to perform the following; determine whether the system contact information includes at least one non-rejected contact for the sender; determine whether the sender has exceeded an activity limit; determine whether the system contact information includes a minimum number of contacts for the sender; and determine whether the number of rejected contacts in the system contact information exceeds a threshold; and the electronic messaging management module further configured to deliver the electronic message to an inbox of a recipient specified in the electronic message if; the sender is included in at least one non-rejected contact for the system contact information; the sender has not exceeded an activity limit; the system contact information includes a minimum number of contacts for the sender; and the number of rejected contacts in the system contact information does not exceed a threshold. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)
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9. A method for processing an electronic messagereceived within a computing system, the method comprising:
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identifying a sender of the electronic message; identifying, from a set of system contact information comprising contactinformation associated with a plurality of system users, any contact informationassociated with the sender of the electronic message; and using the contact information associated with the sender to determine whether achallenge-response message should be sent to the sender, wherein using the contactinformation comprises; determining whether the system contact information includes at least onenon-rejected contact for the sender; and determining whether the system contact information comprises an amountof information about the sender of the electronic message stored on one or morecontact data structures embodied on a computer-readable medium, the amount ofinformation about the sender being information other than information included inan addressing portion of the electronic message that has been added to the one ormore contact data structures by at least one of the plurality of users; and
issuing a challenge-response message when the one or more contact datastructures do not contain information other than information included in an addressingportion of the electronic message. - View Dependent Claims (10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15)
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16. A method for communicating an electronic messagewithin a computing system, the method comprising:
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receiving a challenge-response message; the challenge-response message sent from a computing system that identified, from a set of system contact information comprising contactinformation associated with a plurality of system users, contact informationassociated with a sender of the electronic message; and used the contact information associated with the sender to determine thatthe challenge-response message should be sent, the use of the contact informationcomprising determining a length of a contact chain between the sender of theelectronic message and a recipient user identified in the electronic message, thelength of the contact chain comprising one or more links of system users betweenthe sender and the recipient user, and identifying a link limit away from therecipient user on which to base use of contact information; using only the contact information associated with the system usersbetween the recipient user and the link limit to perform two or more of; determining whether the system contact information includes atleast one non-rejected contact for the sender; determining whether the system contact information includes atleast one rejected contact for the sender; determining whether the sender has exceeded an activity limit; determining whether the system contact information includes aminimum number of contacts for the sender; and determining whether the number of rejected contacts in the systemcontact information exceeds a threshold. - View Dependent Claims (17, 18)
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Specification