Patent ID: 8600022

Claim:
A method for minimizing unsolicited marketing communications to a plurality of subscribers, comprising the steps of: establishing a subscription base of the plurality of subscribers; obtaining a contacting party identification for an incoming communication to a selected contact point of a subscriber in the subscription base before the incoming communication is allowed to pass through to the selected contact point; comparing the contacting party identification with a marketing database containing a plurality of marketing contacting party identifications to determine if there is a match between the contacting party identification and any of the plurality of marketing contacting party identifications, and then, if there is no match, completing the incoming communication, keeping a record of the contacting party identification, allowing the subscriber to designate the incoming communication as a marketing communication, and adding the contacting party identification into the marketing database if a preselected criterion for addition is met once more than one subscriber identifies the contacting party identification as a potential marketing communication; wherein the incoming communication to the selected contact point will not be completed if there is a match unless an override condition is set.