1748 results about "Email address" patented technology

Various methods, systems and apparatus for associating fictitious user identities (e.g. screen names, user names, email addresses, handles, etc.) used in electronic communications (e.g. over the internet or mobile network via instant messenger, e-mail, social networks, ecommerce, auction websites, etc.) with real personal information (e.g. the true identity of an individual such as their name, address, credit score, driving record, mobile number, etc.) are disclosed. One such method may include discovering, verifying and storing real personal information, associated with fictitious user identities and email addresses. The method may further include allowing a remote user or service to submit a fictitious user identity and a query requesting real-user information associated with the submitted fictitious user identity. In one possible embodiment, a targeted-advertising service may utilize real user information, associated with a fictitious user name, to target advertisements at the user of the fictitious user name.

A method for blocking and/or filtering electronic mail. Selected senders are provided with a valid passcode associated with an e-mail address. When an e-mail is received at a mail server node, a field in a header of the e-mail is checked for a valid passcode associated with the destination e-mail address. If a valid passcode is detected, the e-mail is automatically sent to a receiver at the e-mail address. If an incorrect passcode is detected, the e-mail is automatically deleted at the server node and does not reach the receiver. If there is no passcode in the e-mail header, the e-mail is held temporarily, until the receiver approves to receive the e-mail. If the receiver rejects the e-mail, the e-mail is deleted. The present invention includes an additional capability for the senders of e-mails to request a passcode associated with a specific e-mail address in a lookup directory, before sending an e-mail to that address. Furthermore, the present invention enables firewall servers to block incoming e-mails only if they are received from the public Internet, thereby allowing all internal e-mails to reach the receiver without having to include valid passcodes.

An Internet directory system and method that is based on user telephone number addressing. The system includes an interactive white and yellow pages directory that is based on telephone numbers. Thus, a user's telephone number is a unique identifier used to key other information within the directory. The telephone number may also be used as the primary component of an email address, domain name, or web site URL for the user. The use of a telephone number as the primary component of an e-mail address or domain name greatly simplifies the process of locating a user. E-mail addresses and domain names may be readily found using standard telephone information services, such as "411", as well as other telephone-based methods for obtaining telephone directory information. This Internet directory system and method brings all communication methods and directory services together using one searchable key, a user's telephone number. The directory entry page may be created, edited and updated by the subscriber using simple html editing or using a voice telephone call or via fax, without the use of a personal computer. Thus, the present invention provides an open directory model wherein the end users construct the directory, and the directory is "living", i.e., dynamically changeable and updateable. The power of the directory is thus placed in the users' hands. The telephone based Internet directory system of the present invention also provides addressing for unified messaging as well as locality in addressing.

An interactive visitor self-registration system for visitors to museums or other public sites using a digital computer or internet appliance device and a touchscreen monitor, which accesses a dedicated website, through a global computer network such as the Internet. It focuses on gathering information regarding residence of visitors as well as the information gathered by a traditional paper guest book. The system is searchable by visitors and by site staff. The information gathered by the system is stored on a dedicated website. A second, administration website, also password protected with an unpublished web address can be used by Site Administrators to customize the looks and options of their specific visitor self-registration system. Additionally, there is a public website which is accessible via the Internet which stores travel information for every signer to the system who logs on with his or her email address. These visitors can track their own travel via a map displayed on the website and be linked to the website for the sites they visit.

A system and related techniques to collect and manage a set of incoming message notification objects, such as instant message notifications, email notifications, download notifications, transaction notifications and others and present those objects to the user an icon, tile or other representation on a dynamically scaled timeline. According to embodiments, the dynamically scaled timeline may present the most recently received object farthest to the right on a notifications bar or facility, and slide objects to the left to represent that passage of time as those objects age. Instead of presenting those objects on a linear scale, according to the invention the time intervals in which the objects may be presented may be scaled to cause the oldest message objects to be presented on a relatively compressed dimension. The most recently received messages in contrast may be presented on wider intervals, to permit the user to perceive the differences in arrival of those items more clearly. According to embodiments, when more than one message object slides to an overlapping point with another, those objects may be stacked into a cascading message stack. When two or more stacks touch, they may be merged into a single stack. According to embodiments of the invention in another regard, when the user hovers over a given message object a popup box may appear which displays attributes of that object, such as message or other notification type, the date and time which the object was received, the source of the underlying message or other data. In further embodiments, one or more of the message notification objects may be clickable or otherwise reactivatable to reveal actions, dialogs, inputs or other interactions which were presented at the time the message was originally received, such as a query box to input a password or a selection for an email address.

A spam filter system and method, for maintaining at least one database of permitted email addresses; automatically communicating with an email server, and selectively downloading and storing email not corresponding to entries in the database; automatically sending a challenge message in response to messages from non-permitted email addresses; if an appropriate response is received to the challenge message, adding the non-permitted email address to the database of permitted email addresses; and automatically restoring downloaded email messages from email addresses which become permitted.

A telephone directory stores a plurality of data sets including a name, a telephone number, e-mail address, image pattern numbers, a ring tone number, a background color number, and a vibrating pattern. An image memory stores images corresponding to each image pattern number. A ring tone memory stores ring tone data corresponding to each ring tone pattern. When a radio communication apparatus receives an incoming call signal, the control unit informs of an incoming voice or message call by repeatedly displaying the images on a display unit.

Methods and systems provide for aggregating person-centric data from one or more data sources and for providing the aggregated data to a user via a computer-displayed user interface that is keyed on or otherwise associated with an identified name in electronically presented text or data. A name in the text or data of an electronic document is identified and is associated with a unique identification, such as an electronic mail address. The unique identification is used by a persona menu application to obtain person-centric data from a variety of data sources. Example data sources include electronic mail contact files, electronic mail and calendaring system free/busy status files, directories of person-centric data related to persons associated with a distributed computing network, and instant messaging files. A data structure is populated with the returned data. Upon user selection, a user interface containing aggregated data associated with the identified name is displayed to the user to provide the user helpful information and actions associated with the identified name.

The present invention provides a method and apparatus which operates completely in the background (i.e., transparent to the user) to verify the validity of an addressee's Internet e-mail address. The invention seeks to prevent the delivery of an e-mail message having an incorrect user name, server name, or a misspelling in either or both in the addressee's Internet e-mail address. If an error is detected, it is called to the sender's attention, where it may be corrected before the message is sent.