Social network email filtering

• US 7,673,003 B2
• Filed: 04/28/2004
• Issued: 03/02/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 04/28/2004
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Little, II, Charles Reeves
• Primary Examiner(s): Flynn, Nathan
• Assistant Examiner(s): Wasel, Mohamed
• Application Number:
  US10/835,373
• Publication Number:
  US 20050246420A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,134 Days
• Field of Search: 709/204, 709/206, 709/207, 709/224, 709/225
• US Class Current: 709/206
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/212 using filtering or selective blocking

Abstract

A user'"'"'s address book includes a first group of email addresses. Those email addresses are used to identify address books that include another group of email addresses. Multiple iterations may be used to identify several groups of email addresses, representing a user'"'"'s social network. When an email message addressed to the user is received, the message is trusted if the sending email address is within the user'"'"'s social network. Otherwise, the message is flagged as junk mail. Varying trust levels may be applied to messages that are received based on a distance within a social network between the sending email address and the user and/or how often the sending email address appears within the social network.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

defining a social network of a user, wherein;

email addresses specified in an electronic address book belonging to the user are defined as being zero degrees separated from the user; and

email addresses specified in an electronic address book that belongs to an owner of an email address that is zero-degrees separated from the user are defined as being one degree separated from the user;

identifying an email address associated with an email message that occurs within the user'"'"'s social network;

in response to identifying the email address associated with the email message, associating a trust level with the email address associated with the email message, the trust level being based, at least in part on a number of degrees of separation between the user and the email address associated with the email message;

determining that the email address associated with the email message occurs more than once within the user'"'"'s social network; and

in response to determining that the email address associated with the email message occurs more than once within the user'"'"'s social network, increasing the trust level associated with the email address associated with the email message to indicate that the email address associated with the email message is more trusted because it occurs more than once within the user'"'"'s social network.

2. The method as recited in claim 1 wherein the first trust level is represented as a numerical value.

3. The method as recited in claim 1 wherein the identifying the email address comprises extracting the email address from the address book belonging to the user.

4. The method as recited in claim 1 wherein the identifying the email address comprises extracting the email address from an address book belonging to an owner of an email address that was extracted from the address book belonging to the user.

5. The method as recited in claim 1 wherein a first trust level assigned to a first email address is less than a second trust level assigned to a second email address, thereby indicating that a likelihood that an email message received from the first email address is junk email is greater than a likelihood that an email message received from the second email address is junk email.

6. The method as recited in claim 1 wherein the increasing comprises:

identifying for the email address that occurs more than once within the user'"'"'s social network, a degree of separation associated with an occurrence that is closest to the user;

determining a maximum trust level associated with the degree of separation; and

limiting the trust level associated with the email address that occurs more than once to the maximum trust level.

7. The method as recited in claim 1 further comprising:

receiving an email message addressed to the user;

determining whether an email address from which the email message was sent is in a social network associated with the user; and

in an event that the email address from which the email message was sent is in the social network associated with the user;

associating a trust level with the message, the trust level being associated in terms of the social network, with the email address from which the email message was sent; and

displaying an indication that the email message has been received, wherein the indication that the email message has been received comprises an indication of the trust level that has been associated with the message.

8. A memory encoded with computer-readable instructions that, when executed by a computer, cause the computer to implement the method as recited in claim 1.

9. An email system comprising:

an email data repository configured to manage incoming and outgoing email messages associated with a user'"'"'s email account; and

a social network email filter configured to filter an incoming email message addressed to the user'"'"'s email account based on whether an email address from which the incoming email message is received is part of a social network associated with the user'"'"'s email account, wherein the social network email filter comprises;

a trusted addresses list generator configured to;

identify email addresses that are within the user'"'"'s social network; and

assign a trust level to each email address that is within the user'"'"'s social network, wherein the trust levels that are assigned are based, at least in part, on;

a number of degrees of separation between a particular email address and the user, such that email addresses having fewer degrees of separation are more trusted than email addresses having more degrees of separation; and

a frequency of occurrence of a particular email address within the user'"'"'s social network, such that a first email address having a particular degree of separation from the user is assigned a first trust level and a second email address having the same particular degree of separation from the user is assigned a second trust level, greater than the first trust level, based on the second email address occurring more times within the user'"'"'s social network than the first email address; and

a message trust level identifier configured to associate a trust level with an incoming email message based on a trust level assigned to an email address from which the incoming email message was sent.

10. A memory encoded with computer-readable instructions that, when executed by a computer, cause the computer to perform a method comprising:

defining a social network associated with an email account, such that;

a first email address stored in an address book associated with the email account is identified as a first-level email address; and

a second email address stored in an address book associated with the first-level email address is identified as a second-level email address;

associating a first trust level with the first-level email address;

associating a second trust level with the second-level email address, wherein a difference between the first trust level and the second trust level indicates that the first-level email address is more trusted to not send spam emails than the second-level email address;

receiving an email message addressed to a particular email account;

determining a sending email address from which the email message was sent;

determining whether the sending email address is part of a social network associated with the particular email account;

in an event that the sending email address is not part of the social network associated with the particular email account, flagging the email message as junk mail; and

in an event that the sending email address is part of the social network associated with the particular email account;

determining a trust level associated with the sending email address within the social network;

associating the trust level with the email message; and

forwarding the email message to an inbox associated with the particular email account, whereby an indication of the email message is displayable along with an indication of the trust level associated with the email message.

11. The memory as recited in claim 10, wherein the method further comprises defining the social network such that:

a third email address stored in an address book associated with the second-level email address is identified as a third-level email address within the social network.

12. A memory encoded with computer-readable instructions which, when executed by a computer, cause the computer to perform a method comprising:

receiving an email message addressed to a particular email account;

determining sending email address from which the email message was sent;

determining whether the sending email address is part of a social network associated with the particular email account;

in an event that the sending email address is not part of the social network associated with the particular email account, flagging the email message as junk mail; and

in an event that the sending email address is part of the social network associated with the particular email account;

determining a trust level associated with the sending email address within the social network;

associating the trust level with the email message; and

forwarding the email message to an inbox associated with the particular email account, whereby an indication of the email message is displayable along with an indication of the trust level associated with the email message.