Electronic mail forwarding service

• US 9,082,110 B2
• Filed: 07/02/2012
• Issued: 07/14/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 03/05/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Yahoo Assets LLC
• Original Assignee: AOL Inc. (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Hamburg, Keith Martin
• Primary Examiner(s): DOAN, DUYEN MY
• Application Number:
  US13/540,400
• Publication Number:
  US 20120271899A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,107 Days
• Field of Search: 709/206, 726/26
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/18 Commands or executable codes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/214 using selective forwarding
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/224 providing notification on incoming messages, e.g. pushed notifications of received messages

Abstract

A system and method are disclosed that enable an email service provider to implement an email forwarding service without losing associated page views. In one embodiment, rather than forwarding the entire email message, the email forwarding service generates a summary email message, and sends this summary email message to the forwarding email address pre-specified by the subscriber. This summary email message includes a link that is selectable by the user to view the original email message on a web site of the email service provider. Thus, even if the forwarding email address is hosted externally, the subscriber still views the full email message on a web site of the provider of the email forwarding service.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method of forwarding email messages, the method comprising the following operations performed by one or more processors:

accessing a first email message addressed to a first email address of a user, the first email message containing message content;

generating a second email message based on the first email message and a universal resource locator (URL) identifying the first email message, the second email message lacking a first portion of the message content of the first email message, while including a second portion of the message content of the first email message and a link that is selectable to access the entire first email message via the URL;

sending the second email message to a second email address of the user that is different than the first email address; and

in response to a selection of the link in the second email message, generating and serving a web page including the first email message and at least one advertisement.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the first email message with the at least one advertisement is served from a web-based email service.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

prompting the user for input of a user login prior to serving the first email message with the at least one advertisement.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the second email message does not allow the user to respond to a sender of the first email message by replying from the second email message.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the user is allowed to reply to a sender of the first email message from the second email message.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the second email message includes a link that is selectable to change email settings.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the second email message includes a link that is selectable to delete the first email.

8. The method of claim 1,

wherein the selection of the link requests the URL for serving the first email message along with the at least one advertisement.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the link is encoded with information to inhibit unauthorized access to the first email message.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one of an email address, a token, and a timestamp are encoded in the link.

17. The system of claim 1, wherein the second email message includes a link that is selectable to delete the first email.

11. A system for forwarding e-mail messages, the system comprising:

a tangible memory device storing instructions; and

at least one processor that, when executing the instructions stored in the tangible memory device, is configured to;

access a first email message addressed to a first email address of a user, the first email message containing message content;

generate a second email message based on the first email message and a universal resource locator (URL) identifying the first email message, the second email message lacking a first portion of the message content of the first email message, while including a second portion of the message content of the first email message and a link that is selectable to access the entire first email message via the URL;

send the second email message to a second email address of the user that is different than the first email address; and

in response to a selection of the link in the second email message, generate and serve a web page including the first email message and at least one advertisement.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the first email message with the at least one advertisement is served from a web-based email service.

13. The system of claim 11, wherein the at least one processor, when executing the instructions, is further configured to:

prompt the user for input of a user login prior to serving the first email message with the at least one advertisement.

14. The system of claim 11, wherein the second e-mail message does not allow the user to respond to a sender of the first email message by replying from the second email message.

15. The system of claim 11, wherein the user is allowed to reply to a sender of the first email message from the second email message.

16. The system of claim 11, wherein the second email message includes a link that is selectable to change email settings.

18. The system of claim 11, wherein

the selection of the link requests the URL for serving the first email message along with the at least one advertisement.

19. The system of claim 11, wherein the link is encoded with information to inhibit unauthorized access to the first email message.

20. The system of claim 11, wherein at least one of an email address, a token, and a timestamp are encoded in the link.