PRIVACY FRIENDLY COMMUNICATION BY OPERATION OF CLOAKED/DECLOAKED EMAIL
The disclosed tools include are tools to efficiently protect privacy for end users and others on the Internet when communicating with others. Specifically, tools disclosed include tools to enable an end user's device to communicate via email with others such as relying-parties such as merchants without revealing her information to the relying-party such as her email address, name or any other information she desires to keep confidential while still being able to have commercially useful transactions with the relying parties and others.
1 . A processor-based ID cloaking system, comprising:
memory configured to store contents that are executable by processor electronics;
processor electronics configured to execute the contents in order to:
receive an email addressed to a cloaked end user address, wherein the email is sent from a relying party email address, wherein the domain of the cloaked end user address and the domain associated to the processor-based cloaked ID system are the same domain, wherein the email has an SMTP sender envelope and a RFC-822 related header field;
identify an end user specified address associated to the cloaked end user address;
modify the RFC-822 related header field within the email's SMTP sender envelope with a cloaked relying party address, wherein the cloaked relying party address is associated with the sender;
wherein the cloaked relying party email address has a domain different than the relying party email address; and
send the email to the identified end user specified address, wherein the email was configured with a reply-to email address comprising the cloaked relying party email address.
2 . The ID cloaking system of claim 1 , wherein the RFC-822 related header field is a “reply to” header field.
3 . The ID cloaking system of claim 1 , wherein the cloaked relying party email address has a domain that is the same as the cloaked end user address.
4 . The ID cloaking system of claim 1 , further comprising instructions that are executable by the processor electronics to cause the processor electronics to determine if the email comprises a cloaked placeholder.
5 . The ID cloaking system of claim 4 , further comprising instructions that are executable by the processor electronics to cause the processor electronics to replace the cloaked placeholder with end user specified information from an end user profile.
6 . The ID cloaking system of claim 5 , wherein the user profile is further comprised of an end user first name.
7 . The ID cloaking system of claim 6 , wherein the user profile was configured by the end user to associate the end user first name with a cloaked end user first name placeholder.