Patent ID: 7725544
Filing Date: 2010-05-25
Classification: G06Q,H04L

Abstract:
1. A method of classifying e-mail as spam, the method comprising: receiving multiple e-mails, wherein each received e-mail includes a header portion and a content portion; storing the received e-mails; analyzing the content portions of the stored e-mails to cluster the stored e-mails into multiple groups of substantially duplicate e-mails; storing the multiple groups of substantially duplicate e-mails; for at least one of the stored groups, selecting a set of one or more test e-mails from that group; determining a proportion of spam e-mails in the selected set of test e-mails; comparing the proportion of spam e-mails to a threshold proportion to determine whether the proportion of spam e-mails exceeds the threshold; if the comparison indicates that the proportion of spam e-mails in the selected set of test e-mails exceeds the threshold proportion, classifying the e-mails in the at least one stored group as spam; and if the comparison indicates that the proportion of spam e-mails in the selected set of test e-mails does not exceed the threshold proportion, classifying the e-mails in the at least one stored group as non-spam.