Patent ID: 6957259

Claim:
A method for regulating e-mail, comprising: maintaining profile information for a plurality of registered e-mail sources that have registered to forward e-mail to a destination, said profile information comprising for each registered e-mail source statistics regarding e-mails previously received from the registered e-mail source; maintaining category information for a plurality of e-mail source categories, said category information comprising for each e-mail source category statistics regarding e-mails previously received from the e-mail source category; receiving an e-mail; identifying an e-mail source for the e-mail; determining from the profile information if the e-mail source is a registered source; if the e-mail source is a registered source, updating the profile information maintained for the e-mail source to reflect receipt of the e-mail, comparing the profile information for the e-mail source to target e-mail statistics, and if the profile information for the e-mail source is not acceptable in comparison to the target e-mail statistics, taking a remedial action; and if the e-mail source is not a registered source, identifying one of said plurality of e-mail source categories, updating the category information for the identified e-mail source category to reflect receipt of the e-mail, comparing the category information for the identified e-mail source category to target e-mail statistics, and if the category information for the identified e-mail source category is not acceptable in comparison to the target e-mail statistics, taking a remedial action.