Patent ID: 8838714
Filing Date: 2014-09-16
Classification: G06Q,H04L,H04M

Abstract:
1. A method, comprising: providing message filter rules from a rules database to gateways, wherein the filter rules include at least one rule associated with classifying a suspect email message as unwanted based, at least in part, on a larger number of invalid e-mail addresses as compared to valid e-mail addresses being part of addressee information in the suspect email message; receiving notifications from at least some of the gateways indicative of a new local message filter rule for at least some of the gateways, wherein the new local message filter rule is associated with an unwanted message received by at least some of the gateways; counting the received notifications; determining if a threshold number of the notifications are received from the gateways, which had previously and independently evaluated the suspect email message as being unwanted before the new local message filter rule was generated based on each of the gateways receiving their own respective threshold number of notifications for the suspect email message; notifying a central authority for confirming the new local message filter rule based, at least in part, on the threshold number of notifications being received from the gateways; adding the new local message filter rule to the rules database if a confirmation is received from the central authority; and terminating the counting of the received notifications from the gateways for the suspect email message if the confirmation is not received from the central authority.