Sony’s stupid email patent

I have to admit that I do enjoy getting stuck into Sony and their inferior software. According to US patent 7016940, Sony now own the exclusive right to make a piece of software which will:

Make the recipient of electronic mail quickly and surely take actions desired by the sender.

The way this is supposed to work is through automatic script attachments to outgoing emails which then get automatically executed when the recipients open those emails. My first thought was along the lines of some really annoying popups endlessly reminding you that you haven’t yet replied but I’m sure I could think of other uses, if I really tried hard enough.

But I won’t.

The simple reason why this really stupid idea will never see the light of day is twofold:

• The concept alone is just plain annoying. Imagine someone else telling you that you must respond to their email or else suffer some consequences, whatever they happen to be. How do you spell fascism again?
• Attaching a script to an email is a notion which is as dead as a dodo and just about as smart. Outlook’s automatic execution of attached scripts is one of the well exploited security flaws which was definitely not one of Microsoft’s brighter ideas and exactly one of the reasons why so many people have switched to Mozilla Thunderbird instead.

Some would argue that because the patent was filed nearly five years ago, Sony could not have had any idea back then just what an impact security has had on the population at large. Fair enough. However, that still leaves us with the other important question:

Why would you think that software which has a primary aim of annoying and harassing users is ever suitable or appropriate?

Unless you work for Sony, I suppose.

Posted in Email, Google, Law, Microsoft, Security, Software, Technology by Ivan