Patent ID: 8781084

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving, by a server device, contact information associated with a first user or a first telephone device from the first telephone device, wherein the contact information includes user names and corresponding telephone numbers; creating, by the server device, one or more whitelists of telephone numbers based on the contact information and storing the one or more whitelists as part of a profile associated with the first telephone device; receiving, by the server device, a request for a second user, of a second telephone device, to leave a voice mail message for the first user of the first telephone device; retrieving, by the server device, the profile associated with the first telephone device; determining, by the server device and based on the profile, whether the second user is allowed to leave the voice mail message for the first user of the first telephone device based on the contact information associated with the second user or the second telephone device, by determining whether a telephone number of the second user device is in the one or more whitelists; allowing the second user to leave the voice mail message for the first user of the first telephone device in response to determining that the telephone number is in the one or more whitelists; and preventing the second user from leaving the voice mail message in response to determining that the telephone number is not in the one or more whitelists, wherein determining whether the second user is allowed to leave the voice mail message comprises: determining, based on a particular field of the profile, whether the first telephone device is registered for a selective voice mail service provided by a carrier associated with the first telephone device, and determining that the second user is allowed to leave the voice mail message in response to determining that the first telephone device is not registered for the selective voice mail service.