Patent ID: 7627635

Claim:
In an electronic message system in which challenge messages can be sent to purported senders of electronic messages to determine whether the purported senders appear to be persons rather than machines, the electronic message system implementing a computing device comprising a computer-readable memory including computer-executable instructions stored thereon that when executed by a processor on the computing device, causes the computing device to perform a method for delivering a self-addressed electronic message without issuing a challenge message, comprising: storing two or more user identifier data structures associated with a particular recipient, each data structure containing: a user identifier field to identify a particular system user, an electronic messaging identifier field to identify a mechanism for electronically contacting the particular system user, and an electronic messaging account type field to identify whether the electronic messaging identifier field is associated with an external account from which the electronic message system can retrieve messages or whether electronic messaging identifier field is associated with a forwarding account from which electronic messages are automatically forwarded to the electronic message system; receiving an electronic message with a sender address and a recipient address; accessing the two or more user identifier data structures to determine that the sender address and the recipient address are contained in the two or more user identifier data structures to conclude that the sender address and the recipient address are both associated with the recipient; and determining whether to accept delivery of the electronic message based on the relationship between the sender address and the recipient address, wherein when the sender address and the recipient address are different and the electronic messaging account type field for a particular user identifier data structure associated with the sender address indicates at least one of an external account or a forwarding account, the electronic message is delivered to the recipient address; and when the sender address and the recipient address are identical, the electronic message is subjected to an additional filtering process and delivery of the electronic message is performed, only if the additional filtering process is successfully completed.