Patent ID: 8751459
Filing Date: 2014-06-10
Classification: G06Q

Abstract:
1. A method for analyzing an email address, comprising: (a) isolating the user name from the email address; (b) extracting one or more strings from the user name which, in combination, represent a candidate full name of the owner of the email address; (c) comparing each of the one or more strings to a table comprising a plurality of real world name components and, for each real world name component, a use frequency, thereby obtaining a use frequency for each string; (d) calculating a likelihood score for the candidate full name to be a real world full name, which calculation takes the use frequencies obtained from step (c) as input; (e) repeating steps (b)-(d) to generate likelihood scores for a plurality of candidate full names each as a combination of different strings obtained by extracting one or more different strings from the user name; and (f) identifying the candidate full name, from the plurality of candidate full names, that has the highest likelihood score as an approximate full name of the owner of the email address, wherein at least one of steps (a)-(f) is performed by a computer.