Systems and methods for email tracking and email spam reduction using dynamic email addressing schemes

摘要

An email redirection server handles email sent by subscribers or intended for subscribers, obfuscating the subscriber's identity through replacement of the subscriber's native email address with a proxy address in the message header and forwarding the email with only the proxy address. Acquiring a proxy address includes assignment by the email redirection server of a child domain in the DNS namespace for the subscriber's exclusive use. When a subscriber intends to send an email to a particular recipient without revealing the subscriber's native email address to the particular recipient, the subscriber addresses the message by putting the recipient's full email address in the local part of the “To” field, replacing the “@” symbol with a known replacement character, and placing the subscriber's assigned subdomain in the domain part of the “To” field, assuring that the email gets to the email redirection server for appropriate readdressing and forwarding.

主权项

1. A method, comprising:
establishing an email redirection server configured for obfuscating an email address of a subscriber using a subdomain; receiving a request from a subscriber for a subscriber subdomain; associating a subscriber subdomain with an email address of the subscriber; storing the email address of the subscriber and the subscriber subdomain in a data store associated with the email redirection server; determining whether at least one email received by the email redirection server is associated with a subscriber, including determining that the at least one email is at least one of from the subscriber or to the subscriber at least partially based on whether the at least one email includes at least the subscriber subdomain in a domain part of a “to” address of the at least one email; and responsive to the determining whether the at least one email received by the email redirection server is associated with a subscriber, at least:
handling the at least one email received by the email redirection server if the at least one email received by the email redirection server is associated with a subscriber; andnotifying the sender of the at least one email received by the email redirection server that the sender is not a subscriber if the at least one email received by the email redirection server is not associated with a subscriber, including at least:
designating the sender of the at least one email received by the email redirection server as another subscriber;associating another subscriber subdomain with an email address of the another subscriber; andstoring the email address of the another subscriber and the another subscriber subdomain in the data store associated with the email redirection server, wherein at least one of the establishing, receiving, associating, storing, determining, handling or notifying is at least partially encoded in one or more non-transitory computer-readable media.