System and method for providing an anti-marketing feature in a network

摘要

A system and method for minimizing unsolicited marketing communications to subscribers in a subscription base obtains a contacting party identification for incoming communications to a selected contact point before communications are allowed to pass through to selected contact points. Next, contacting party identification is compared with a marketing database to determine if there is a match. If there is a match, a preselected action other than completing the incoming communication is taken or incoming communication is completed if an override condition is set. If there is no match, incoming communication is passed through and the subscriber can designate it as an unwanted marketing communication if a preselected criterion for addition is met once more than one subscriber identifies the contacting party identification as a potential marketing communication. The entries in the marketing database can be periodically deleted over time and then readded to the marketing database once the preselected criterion for addition has been met so as to refresh the database and keep it from becoming stale. A subscriber can access a customized subscriber database to selectively vary one or more override conditions.