1. A method to manage an email filter associated with a client computing machine, the method comprising: collecting information as a user navigates to and interacts with external websites; applying one or more rule-based criteria to the collected information to determine a characterization to be applied to an initiator of an email message; and providing the characterization to the email filter to facilitate an email filter operation with respect to the email message; wherein the compiling, applying and providing steps are carried out in software executing in a hardware element.