Smarter telephony and E-mail protocols

An apparatus for filtering telephone calls includes a fee module, an exemption list module, a call module, a matching module, and a fee waiver module. The fee module charges a fee to a caller for an incoming call made by the caller to a user. The fee is specific to the incoming call. The exemption list module maintains an exemption list, which includes callers exempt from the fee, and their information. This information identifies an exempted caller when the call module receives an incoming call. The matching module determines if information associated with the incoming call matches an exempt caller's information on the exemption list. The fee waiver module exempts the incoming call from the fee when the matching module determines that the caller's information matches the information on the exemption list. The fee module charges the fee for incoming calls not exempted from the fee.