Patent ID: 7016938

Claim:
A method for transmitting an e-mail message comprising the steps of: receiving the e-mail message at an intermediate address, the e-mail message including non-preferred e-mail address data, the e-mail message having been previously transmitted to an invalid e-mail address and transmitted back to a sender e-mail address; parsing the non-preferred e-mail address data from the e-mail message at the intermediate address and determining whether there is a subscriber account associated with the non-preferred e-mail address and if there is preferred e-mail address data associated with the non-preferred e-mail address data; and storing, at a location associated with the intermediate address, the non-preferred e-mail address data and the associated sender e-mail address when it is determined that there is no subscriber account associated with the non-preferred e-mail address and no preferred e-mail address data associated with the non-preferred e-mail address data.