Patent ID: 7284045

Claim:
A method for determining information for accessing an electronic mail account according to an electronic mail protocol, comprising: receiving an address for delivering electronic mail to an electronic mail account; receiving a password for accessing the electronic mail account; extracting, from the address, a user name and an electronic mail account domain for the electronic mail account; and determining whether the electronic mail account domain, user name and password can be used to access the electronic mail account according to the electronic mail protocol, wherein the step of determining whether the electronic mail account domain, user name and password can be used to access the electronic mail account according to the electronic mail protocol includes determining if the electronic mail account domain is included in a list of closed domains the do not include server computers employing the electronic mail protocol; and if the electronic mail account domain is not included in the list of closed domains: accessing a list of known domains, such that at least one server computer known to employ the electronic mail protocol is associated with each of the known domains; mapping the electronic mail account domain against the list of known domains; and if the electronic mail account domain is included in the list of known domains, attempting to access the electronic mail account at one or more of the server computers associated with the electronic mail account domain using the user name and password.