Patent ID: 8280967

Claim:
A method of filtering an electronic message using virtual email comprising the steps of: providing a server, the server comprising a computer, and the server configured for receiving an electronic message sent by an email sender to an email recipient; creating a virtual email address for a recipient-identified sender to use to send the electronic message to the email recipient, the virtual email address comprising a sender identification in combination with the recipient's non-encoded email address, wherein the recipient's non-encoded email address is the actual email recipient's email address part of the email used by the email recipient's server to identify the email recipient at the email recipient's server; enabling the server to identify the email recipient using the recipient's non-encoded email address; enabling the server to identify the email sender as an authorized email sender when the email sender's identification is in an email to the email recipient; storing the email sender's identification on the server in an email recipient's account so that it is related to the recipient's non-encoded email address; using the email recipient's account for storing email comprising the virtual email address; enabling the email recipient to access the email; enabling the email recipient to create a virtual email address for assignment to a specific email sender; receiving the electronic message using the virtual email address; receiving a second electronic message from a non-user-identified sender at the server, wherein the second electronic message comprises a second virtual email address, the second virtual email address comprising an identification of the non-user-identified sender in combination with the non-encoded recipient's email address, wherein the virtual email address for the non-user-identified is not registered with the recipient's email server; responding to the non-user-identified sender requesting an answer that only a human could provide; 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 second electronic message in the newly created electronic account; enabling the server to interpret the virtual email address, the virtual email address comprising a parameter identifying the position of the identification name of the sender and the position of the user's email address within the virtual email address; and enabling the server to recognize a parameter in the second virtual email address, the parameter comprising an identification of the position of the identification name of the sender and the position of the user's email address within the second virtual email address.