Patent ID: 7668920
Filing Date: 2010-02-23
Classification: G06Q,H04L

Abstract:
1. A method comprising: identifying, by a Universal Resource Identifier (URI) insertion routine, an electronic message to be tracked, wherein the identifying is based on the electronic message being classified as virus-infected by a virus scanning routine associated with a commercial anti-virus service or the electronic message being classified as spam by a spam scanning routine associated with a commercial anti-spam service; associating, by the URI insertion routine, a linking object with the electronic message to be tracked, the linking object encoded with a destination address of an email submission server associated with the commercial anti-spam service or the commercial anti-virus service; responsive to activation of the linking object by a receiver of the electronic message to be tracked, an email client programmatically submitting information regarding the electronic message to be tracked to the commercial anti-spam service or the commercial anti-virus service by creating and sending an email message directed to the destination address and preserving the receiver's privacy by including within the submitted information only signatures of the electronic message and other information associated with the electronic message that facilitate spam or virus analysis; wherein the URI insertion routine, the virus scanning routine, the spam scanning routine and the email client are implemented in one or more processors and one or more computer-readable media of one or more computer systems, the one or more computer-readable media having instructions tangibly embodied therein that are executable by the one or more processors; wherein the electronic message to be tracked comprises an email message; and further comprising archiving the email message on an email storage server and wherein the linking object enables retrieval of an entirety of the email message by the commercial anti-spam service or the commercial anti-virus service.