Patent ID: 7903549

Claim:
A method for operation upon one or more data processors to filter communications based upon content based policy compliance, the method comprising: for each of a plurality of sets of pre-existing files, defining a corresponding classification to be associated with the set of pre-existing files, the corresponding classification classifying content of the set of files as being associated with at least one of a plurality of departments of a business; processing each of the sets of pre-existing files by one or more classification techniques; generating a set of identifying characteristics for each corresponding classification, each set of identifying characteristics based on the set of pre-existing files associated with the corresponding classification; for each of the plurality of corresponding classifications, receiving a rule specifying treatment of content identified as associated with the classification based on the set of known identifying characteristics; and wherein each rule defines whether to forward a communication including content to a recipient based upon the classification of the content and at least one of the recipient and the sender.