Time travelling email messages after delivery

• US 7,996,900 B2
• Filed: 03/14/2008
• Issued: 08/09/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 03/14/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Gillum, Eliot Carleton, Vitaldevara, Krishna Charan
• Primary Examiner(s): Dada; Beemnet W
• Application Number:
  US12/048,587
• Publication Number:
  US 20090234865A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,243 Days
• Field of Search: 726 23- 26, 709/206, 709/207, 713/165, 713/167, 713/188
• US Class Current: 726/23
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]

Abstract

Systems and methods for reviewing email messages after delivery to an inbox. An inbox filter maintains a suspect list identifying of the email messages including unwanted content and identifies unread email messages in the inbox of the user. The inbox filter moves each identified unread email message to a suspect folder when the determined source of the identified unread email message is contained in the suspect list of sources.

Claims

1. A method of reviewing email messages after delivery to an inbox of a user, said inbox being associated with a mailbox, comprising:

maintaining a suspect list of sources, the sources being undesirable based on user complaints and feedback loops;

determining a read/view state of each email message;

identifying, based on said determined state, each email message that has not been accessed by the user and that is stored in the inbox of the user;

determining the source of each of the identified email messages that has not been accessed; and

when the user is not active in the mailbox, removing each identified email message that has not been accessed from the mailbox when the determined source of the identified email message that has not been accessed is contained in the suspect list of sources.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein said identifying occurs periodically during periods when the mailbox is not being accessed by the user.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein said identifying occurs in response to a user command.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the identifying occurs in response to receiving a request from the user to access the mailbox of the user.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the identifying occurs periodically in response to receiving a command from the user.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

monitoring the user'"'"'s actions relative to the mailbox; and

wherein said identifying occurs in response to the monitoring indicating that the user has not read an email message in the inbox of the user for a period of time.

7. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

monitoring the user'"'"'s actions relative to the mailbox; and

wherein said identifying occurs in response to the monitoring indicating that the user has not composed a new email message or deleted an email message in the inbox for a period of time.

8. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

monitoring the user'"'"'s actions relative to the inbox; and

wherein said identifying occurs periodically in response to the monitoring indicating that user is no longer accessing the inbox.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the suspect list is based on a reputation of the source and the reputation of the source is based on one or more of the following:

user complaints, feedback loops or anti-spam technology indicating the message is spam, antivirus technology indicating the message contains a virus, feedback loops or image recognition technology indicating the message contains pornography, feedback loops or antiinfringement technology indicating the message contains unauthorized copyrighted material, and feedback loops or anti-phishing technology indicating the message contains a phishing attack.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the source associated with the email message is based on one or more of the following:

an IP address associated with the email message, a URL contained in the email message, a subject of the email message, a source of the email message, keywords in the email message, hashes of all of a subset of the email message, a header of the email message, and a domain of a sender of the email message.

11. A method of reviewing a plurality of email messages after delivery to a mailbox of a user, said mailbox including an inbox, said plurality of email messages being associated with a source, comprising:

maintaining a suspect list of sources indicating a source of the email message is not desirable based on user complaints and feedback loops;

determining a read/view state of each email message;

identifying, based on said determined state, each email message that has not been accessed by the user and that is stored in an unaccessed mailbox of the user;

for each identified email message that has not been accessed by the user;

determining if the source of the identified email message is contained in the suspect list of sources;

moving the identified email message to a suspect folder when the determined source of the identified email message is contained in the suspect list of sources and when the user is not active in the mailbox; and

retaining the identified email message in the inbox when the determined source of the identified email message is not contained in the suspect list of sources.

12. The method of claim 11 wherein the determining occurs periodically during periods when the inbox is not accessed.

13. The method of claim 11 wherein the determining occurs in response to a user command.

14. The method of claim 11, wherein the determining occurs in response to receiving a request from the user to access the mailbox of the user.

15. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

determining a state of the email message;

wherein said determining if the source of the email message is contained in the suspect list of sources occurs in response to the determined state indicating that the email message has not been previously read by the user; and

wherein said determining if the source of the email message is contained in the suspect list of sources does not occur in response to the determined state indicating that the email message has been previously read by the user.

16. A system for reviewing email messages after delivery to a mailbox, said system comprising a system memory storing computer-executable components, said components comprising:

an email receipt component for receiving a plurality of email messages and storing said plurality of email messages in the mailbox of the user;

a suspect list component for maintaining a suspect list of sources wherein the reputation of source is undesirable based on user complaints and feedback loops;

an inbox filter for;

monitoring the user'"'"'s actions relative to the mailbox while the user is accessing the mailbox; and

when the monitoring indicates that the user is not active in the mailbox for a period of time, then;

determining a read/view state of each email message;

identifying, based on said determined state, each email message stored in the mailbox of the user which has not been seen, displayed, previewed, opened, or otherwise accessed by the user; and

determining the source of each of the identified email messages; and

displaying each identified email message to indicate to the user that the determined source of the identified email message is contained in the suspect list of sources.

17. The system of claim 16 wherein the identifying occurs periodically in response to receiving a command from the user.

18. The system of claim 16 wherein said identifying occurs in response to the monitoring by the mailbox filter indicating that the user has not composed or deleted an email message in the inbox of the user for a period of time.

19. The system of claim 16 wherein said identifying occurs periodically in response to the monitoring by the inbox filter indicating that user is no longer accessing the mailbox.

20. The system of claim 16, wherein determining the source of each of the identified unread email messages by the inbox filter is based on one or more of the following:

an IP address associated with the email message, a URL contained in the email message, a subject of the email message, a source of the email message, keywords in the email message, hashes of a subset or all of the email message, value of a header of the email message, and a domain of a sender of the email message.