Patent ID: 8838718

Claim:
A method of filtering an electronic message using virtual email comprising the steps of: providing a first server, the first server comprising a computer, and the first server configured for receiving an electronic message sent by an first email sender to an email recipient identified by the first email sender; creating a first virtual email address to use to send the electronic message to the email recipient, the first virtual email address comprising a sender identification in combination with a non-encoded email address of the email recipient, the non-encoded email address comprising a part of an actual email address of the email recipient used by a second server receiving email sent to the email recipient to identify the email recipient at the second server; identifying the email recipient using the non-encoded email address of the email recipient; enabling the first server to identify the first email sender as an authorized email sender when an identification of the first email sender is in an email message sent to the email recipient; storing the identification of the first email sender on the first server in an account for the email recipient so that the identification is related to the non-encoded email address of the email recipient; storing in the account of the email recipient an email message, said email message comprising the first virtual email address; enabling the email recipient to access the email message; creating a second virtual email address when requested by the email recipient, said second virtual email address assigned to a second email sender; receiving a second electronic message using the second virtual email address; receiving a third electronic message from a non-user-identified sender at the first server, wherein the third electronic message comprises a third virtual email address, the third virtual email address comprising an identification of the non-user-identified sender in combination with the non-encoded email address of the email recipient, wherein the third virtual email address for the non-user-identified sender is not registered with the first server; responding to the non-user-identified sender requesting an answer that only a human could provide; and receiving the answer from the non-user-identified sender and if the answer is correct, then creating an electronic account on the server for the non-user-identified sender and storing the third electronic message in said electronic account.