The folks who enjoy actively researching the influence behind the election turn to Sunlight’s tools like Follow the Unlimited Money, Ad Hawk or our Elections hub page. For everyone else, there’s Inbox Influence: a passive research assistant that uncovers the political contributions of people and organizations mentioned in emails you receive. Inbox Influence is a lightweight browser extension that works for Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari.

This simple tool that originally launched in 2011 is powered by our Influence Explorer project (dubbed “brilliant” by NYMag) and reveals what’s lurking in your inbox with the click of a mouse. Discover the background on the sender of that latest fundraising solicitation, corporate correspondence or forwarded news article – it provides relevant information as we rapidly approach the 2012 elections. Don’t take our word for it: Engadget said it will out that closet-lobbyist in your life, Forbes confirmed it will de-astroturf your inbox, Nieman Lab said it could “help people make better decisions about whom they do business with” and another just orders “If you do anything else today, you have to check out ‘Inbox Influence’.”