Patent ID: 7774409

Claim:
A method for discovering contacts which are common to a sender and a recipient of an electronic message (e-mail), the method comprising the steps of: receiving a selection of an email recipient from a sender; determine whether the recipient has been included in a first list of contacts which are personal to the sender; if it is determined that the recipient has not been included in the first list of contacts, prompting the sender to attach the first list of contacts; attaching the first list of contacts to the e-mail responsive to identifying a request to attach the first list of contacts from the sender; retrieving a second list of contacts which are personal to the recipient; parsing each of the first and second lists of contacts and comparing said parsed lists to identify common contacts that are common to the sender and the recipient; and populating a common contact list with said identified common contacts, wherein the common contact list contains only said identified common contacts; wherein said common contact list is visible to the recipient, but said first list of contacts which are personal to the sender is not visible to the recipient.