Patent ID: 7577984

Claim:
A method for forwarding a communication from a sender in a sending domain to a recipient in another domain, the sending domain being different from the other domain, the method comprising: receiving at an access point of the sending domain the communication sent from the sender to the recipient in the other domain; identifying by the access point of the sending domain a trust level associated with the sender, the trust level being identified by the access point of the sending domain based on evaluation of previous communications sent by the sender from the sending domain, the trust level indicating confidence that the sending domain has that the communication will be wanted by the recipient of the communication; and sending from the access point of the sending domain to an access point of the other domain the received communication along with the identified trust level so that, upon receiving the communication and the identified trust level, the access point of the other domain identifies confidence it has in the identified trust level of the sender based on evaluation of previous communications and identified trust levels sent by the sending domain and sends the received communication to the recipient when the access point of the other domain identifies that it has confidence in the identified trust level of the sending domain and the identified trust level indicates that the communication will be wanted by the recipient of the communication; and receiving at the access point of the sending domain from the access point of the other domain a notification that the sent communication was unwanted when the trust level indicates that the communication was wanted so that the sending domain can adjust the trust level associated with the sender.