Patent ID: 7685414

Claim:
A method for processing service requests at a service provider in a system in which users communicate by sending and receiving encrypted messages over a communications network, comprising: at a sender, creating an encrypted message with sender-recipient mapping information and sending the encrypted message with sender-recipient mapping information to a recipient over the communications network, wherein creating the encrypted message comprises encrypting a message with a public key associated with the recipient to create the encrypted message; at the recipient, receiving the encrypted message and sender-recipient mapping information; at the recipient, submitting a service request to the service provider, wherein the service request includes the sender-recipient mapping information; at the service provider, using the sender-recipient mapping information to determine whether the sender is a primary user in an organization that is a direct customer of the service provider and, if the sender is a primary user, satisfying the service request of the recipient, wherein the sender has an email address and the recipient has an email address; at the sender, creating a string containing the sender's email address and the recipient's email address; and at the sender, creating the sender-recipient mapping information by digitally signing the string.