Patent ID: 7870203

Claim:
A method for providing a reputation associated with a message to an end user, wherein the end user comprises a messaging client, the method implemented at a filtering system and comprising: receiving a message, the message being generated by a message originator, and being received from an originating messaging system via a network, the message including a message header comprising originator and recipient information, and a message body comprising content; retrieving reputation information for the message based on the originating messaging system or originating information associated with the message; associating a reputation indicator with the message, the reputation indicator being based upon the retrieved reputation information; and passing the message, along with the associated reputation indicator, to a receiving system associated with a recipient of the message based upon the recipient information included in the message header; wherein: the reputation associated with the message is operable to be displayed to the recipient; the reputation includes a global reputation and a local reputation, the local reputation associated with a user and the global reputation being associated with a plurality of users; the reputation indicator causes a recipient device to display the reputation of the message in a toolbar on the recipient device, the displaying including displaying of the global reputation and the local reputation for the message in the toolbar; and the local reputation and the global reputation are stored in separate data structures on a remote server, and a user configuration determines which reputation to display in the toolbar.