Patent ID: 7853989
Filing Date: 2010-12-14
Classification: G06Q,H04L

Abstract:
1. A method comprising: receiving, via an Internet email-sending protocol from an email-sending server, a first email message to an email-receiving server identifying a sender address of a sender and a recipient address of a recipient for an email attempted to be sent by the email-sending server to the email-receiving server; maintaining for each of at least a portion of a plurality of recipients whose email-receiving is handled by the email-receiving server those authorized sender addresses that are authorized to send email to said recipient; checking whether the identified sender address for the first email message is included among those authorized sender addresses for the identified recipient; and in response to the sender address identified in the first email message not being recognized as one of those authorized sender addresses for the recipient, sending via the Internet email-sending protocol from the email-receiving server to the email-sending server a second email message rejecting the sending of the first email message to the email-receiving server, wherein the email-sending server is prevented from sending the first email message to the email-receiving server under the Internet email-sending protocol.