US Patent 8191138 Addressee-based whitelisting

In some embodiments, techniques for filtering electronic messages may include receiving an email message, determining a non-recipient email addressee associated with the email message, wherein the non-recipient email addressee has an address that is unaffiliated with a recipient for which the email message has been received, determining whether the non-recipient email addressee is associated with a whitelist; and processing the email message preferentially, when it is determined that the non-recipient email addressee is associated with the whitelist.