Patent ID: 7849146

Claim:
A method for use in managing delivery of content over a network, comprising: determining a plurality of IP address groups from a plurality of messages received from a plurality of different IP addresses, the plurality of messages being grouped based on message volumes received during a given time period for each of the different IP addresses; determining an entropy for each IP address group determined to be associated with non-spam messages; determining a distribution of messages for a plurality of messages received from a given IP address by distributing the messages from the given IP address across a plurality of message buckets based on a size of each message; determining a percentage of messages within each message bucket within the plurality of message buckets by determining a number of messages in a given message bucket divided by a total number of messages for the given IP address; determining a message entropy for the given IP address by summing the percentages of messages times a log of the percentages of messages over all message buckets; selecting an entropy as a threshold value from an IP address group associated with non-spam messages based on a comparison of a message volume for the given IP address; if the message entropy for the given IP address is determined to be statistically significant from the selected entropy threshold value, then classifying the given IP address as a potential spammer; and selectively inhibit sending of messages from the given IP address to message recipients.