Patent ID: 7945684

Claim:
A method of assessing a spam risk associated with submitting an email address to a web site, the method comprising: for each of a plurality of users, detecting user submissions of email addresses to a web site, wherein the email addresses are associated with email accounts of the respective users; in response to a submission of an email address to the web site by a first user among the plurality of users, logging a timestamp associated with such user submission; subsequent to detecting the submission of the email address to the web site by the first user, monitoring the email account of the first user for receipt of unsolicited emails associated with the web site; determining a spam risk for the web site based upon the monitoring using at least one hardware-implemented processor, wherein determining the spam risk for the web site includes comparing activity in the email account associated with the first user between a point in time prior to the timestamp and a point in time after the timestamp to detect increased activity in the email account associated with the first user; and notifying a user visiting the web site of the determined spam risk.