System would make it easy for people to renew domains using a third-party texting service.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has issued patent number 9,929,995 (pdf) to GoDaddy for “Third party messaging system for monitoring and managing domain names and websites.”
The patent is a continuation of an earlier one the company filed for allowing people to make changes to a website via text message.
This latest patent covers technology that would allow GoDaddy to communicate with customers via SMS, app or a third-party social network to help them renew their domain name or expand their webhosting package.
For example, if a customer’s domain is about to renew, GoDaddy could send a text message to the customer and ask if they want to renew it. They could respond ‘yes’ to renew the domain automatically, or ‘no’ if they want to let it expire.
On the hosting side, GoDaddy can send a message to the customer if they are about to exceed one of their quotas and give them the option to upgrade their hosting package.
This is somewhat like a chatbot. When an ad campaign on Facebook expires the company starts a Facebook Messenger chat with the advertiser that lets them get stats and extend their ad campaign by typing plain English words.
GoDaddy Chief Architect Arnold Blinn and former Sr. Director of Product Management Nitin Gupta are listed on the patent as inventors.
Interesting. However, an SMS communication has underlying issues of trust. Its automation gives the recipient the assumption that the sender is legitimate. A third party that would like to interfere with the process, could fake its specifications, sending e.g. requests for surrendering or providing account credentials. Social engineering meets phishing. A chatbot that prompts for renewals AFTER you log into your account, would be a great idea.
That’s why it would be smart to do this only for “positive” things, rather than account changes. Renewing a domain or extending a hosting package’s capacity as opposed to permitting a domain transfer.
However, opening up communications like this could indeed lead to future phishing attacks as fake SMS senders could ask for authentication details.
Hello Acro,
Hooray another Strategic thinker, such as yourself , cuts through the front stage BS and sees whats happening on the back of the stage. Great comment Acro.
JAS
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger) (Former Rockefeller IBEC Marketing Intelligence Analyst/Strategist) (Licensed CBOE Commodity Hedge Strategist) (Domain Master )http://www.UseBiz.com