Patent ID: 7818295

Claim:
A method for handling a communication request received for a former user of a communication system, the method comprising: receiving, at the communication system, the communication request addressed to the former user of the communication system from a first party, the first party having an address book comprising address information for a plurality of contacts; determining, by system lookup, that the former user has a forwarding address comprising a new communication information; considering a set of predetermined fadeout rules comprising one or more time periods and each time period having a start date and time, the fadeout rules established uniquely for the former user by a system administrator; determining, by system lookup from the fadeout rules, that the communication request is received during one of the time periods and the forwarding address is allowed to be sent from the communication system to the address book of the first party; and sending a command to the first party address book to update the book with the new communication information for the former user, whereby, the former user is not required to take any action to establish the fadeout rules and update the first party address book.