Patent ID: 8676903

Claim:
A method of controlling an email whitelist, the method comprising the steps of: a computer detecting a webform on a web page, and in response, the computer collecting an email address from the web page, the collected email address for communicating via email with a website user or a subscription service user; the computer detecting a submission of the webform, and in response, the computer detecting whether a user email address is included in the webform; the computer determining that the collected email address is to be added to an email whitelist of an email system associated with the user email address, and in response, the computer updating a configuration of the email whitelist of the email system, wherein the step of the computer updating the configuration of the email whitelist of the email system comprises the computer adding the collected website email address to the email whitelist of the email system; the computer collecting a second email address from the web page, the collected second email address for communicating via email with a website user or a subscription service user; the computer determining that the collected second email address is on an email blacklist of the email system, and in response, the computer performing one of: dropping the collected second email address from being added to the email whitelist of the email system; and flagging the collected second email address as being previously blacklisted, generating a query to determine whether a user desires to have the collected second email address blocked or to have the collected second email address added to the email whitelist of the email system, and processing the collected second email address based on a response to the query.