Patent ID: 7596600

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving electronically a communication having associated trace data; parsing the received communication to determine a sender electronic address associated with the received communication; determining if the trace data associated with the received communication is valid; transmitting a request to the sender electronic address to authenticate an origin of the received communication in response to a determination that the trace data is not valid; storing the communication electronically until a response to the request to authenticate is received from the sender electronic address; determining, in response to the request to authenticate being returned from the sender electronic address as undeliverable, a reason that the request to authenticate was undeliverable and delivering the received communication to the recipient electronic address if the reason the request to authenticate was returned as undeliverable indicates that the sender electronic address is associated with a legitimate entity; and wherein determining the reason that the request to authenticate was undeliverable includes determining whether the request to authenticate was undeliverable due to an error, lack of disk space, server malfunction, or network malfunction.