JPH10198613A - Automatic electronic mail address providing method - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To automatically provide a mail address through an application receiving server by presenting a usable account from the application receiving server to an applicant as a recommended account. SOLUTION: At an application receiving server 130, plural ranked account candidates are automatically generated from the family name and first name of on-line applicant through a terminal 110. At the server 130, a subdomain having the non-used account is successively searched from the 1st candidate account while referring to a subdomain database 140. When the subdomain having the non-used account is detected, at that time point, an address is reserved with the candidate account as the recommended account. The application receiving server 130 acquires the desired account inputted by this on-line applicant and when the desired account is selected out of recommended accounts, the electronic mail address is determined by this account. At the same time, concerning the non-selected accounts, the address reservation is canceled.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a public electronic mail service on the Internet or the like, and more particularly, to a method for automatically assigning a mail address to an online applicant for the public electronic mail service.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In public electronic mail services such as Internet mail, there are an online application and an offline application. Here, it is assumed that the e-mail address takes the form shown in FIG. 2 (however, even in another form, the procedure and the like shown in this specification are easily portable.

In recent years, public e-mail service providers have
There is a tendency that the e-mail address 10 as shown in FIG. 2 is determined by online application. In this method, the system of the service provider creates and determines an account 11 in a certain format irrespective of the applicant's name and wishes, and reflects the applicant's wishes in the account when possible. It can be roughly divided into a method that makes it work.

Conventionally, in the method of determining an e-mail address reflecting a name online, an applicant for use first inputs one or a plurality of desired e-mail accounts in order. Hereinafter, as a condition, a case where the service provider has one or a plurality of subdomains 12 will be described. In this case, the following two methods are considered.

[0005] (1) A specific sub-domain is allocated in advance to the online applicant on the service provider side.
Only if the applicant's desired account is unused by all other users, it will be determined as the applicant's account. If this is not the case, repeat the process from asking the applicant to enter the desired email address, give a formal account unrelated to the wish, or determine the email address offline Becomes

(2) A specific subdomain is not determined in advance, but a subdomain in which a desired account submitted by an applicant is unused is searched. If a sub-domain that is not used is detected, the desired account is determined as the applicant's account, and the sub-domain is also determined at the same time. The action to be taken when no data is detected is the same as in (1) above.

[0007]

The problems of the above-mentioned conventional method are that it is difficult for a person who does not know the form of the e-mail address to use the e-mail address and that the number of used accounts increases as the number of service users increases. It is difficult to obtain (e-mail address exhaustion). In addition, if a user wants an (ordinary) mail account that has already been registered in many subdomains, there is a problem in that the search area becomes large, and the load on the application reception server becomes heavy.

[0008] An object of the present invention is to solve the above-mentioned problems of the conventional method, and to accept an application to a public electronic mail service online without having the applicant input a desired account. An object of the present invention is to provide a method of automatically assigning a mail address in a server.

[0009]

According to the present invention, a usable account is presented to the applicant as a recommended account from the application receiving server. For this reason, the application reception server generates a plurality of ranked account candidates based on the alphabetical name (first and last names) of the applicant. Of the candidates, the account that is determined to be actually usable is locked with the combination of the account and the subdomain at the time when the availability is determined. That is, the combination of the candidate account and the detected subdomain is prevented from being used by others. This is called “address reservation”. When the address of the applicant is determined, the lock other than the determined e-mail address is released. This is hereinafter referred to as “release of address reservation”.

[0010]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS One embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a system configuration for realizing an electronic mail address automatic assignment method according to the present invention. In the figure, a user terminal 110 such as a personal computer is connected to a public e-mail service application receiving server 130 via a communication network 120. The application receiving server 130 is the subdomain database 14
0, and manages accounts that have already been registered (used) for subdomains.

FIG. 3 shows an example of a processing flow for automatically assigning a mail address according to the present invention in the application receiving server 130 for the public electronic mail service. Hereinafter, description will be made in accordance with this.

The application receiving server 130 first obtains an alphabetical name of the applicant by separating his / her first and last name from the input of the online applicant through the terminal 110 (step 301). Next, a plurality of ranked account candidates are automatically generated from the first and last names (step 3).
02). The procedure for generating the account candidate will be described later. Next, the server 130 refers to the subdomain database 140 and searches for a subdomain in which the account is not used in order from the first candidate account (step 303). Then, when an unused sub-domain is detected (YES in step 304), an address reservation is made at that time with the candidate account as a recommended account (step 306). If no unused subdomain is detected (NO in step 304), the next-ranked account candidate is assigned to the exploration key (step 3).
05), again, the exploration of the subdomain in which the account candidate is not used is executed.

As described above, when the number of reserved recommended accounts reaches the predetermined number of presentations or when the subdomain search for all generated account candidates is completed (step 307). ), The application receiving server 130 presents the recommended account to the terminal 110 of the online applicant (step 308). The ranking is also assigned to the recommended addresses. In this embodiment, the ranking as the account candidate is taken over.

[0014] The online applicant selects a desired account from the presented recommended accounts or inputs another desired account. The application receiving server 130 acquires the desired account input by the online applicant (step 309), and if the desired account is selected from the recommended accounts (YES in step 310), determines an e-mail address with this account. (Step 311). At the same time, the address reservation is canceled for the recommended account not selected. The account determined as the e-mail address is registered in the sub main database 140.

On the other hand, if the desired account is not selected from the recommended accounts and is an input unique to the applicant (NO in step 310), the desired account is used as an exploration key, and the sub-main database is used as in step 303. 140 is searched to determine whether the desired account is usable (steps 312 to 314). Here, if the desired account is available (Y in step 314)
ES), an e-mail address is immediately determined based on the desired account and the detected sub-domain (step 315). If the desired address cannot be used (NO in step 314), the address reserved for the first-ranked recommended account among the recommended accounts previously presented to the applicant is determined as the e-mail address. (Step 316). In any case, the address reservation that has not become the e-mail address is released. Also,
The account determined as the e-mail address is registered in the subdomain database 140.

Next, referring to FIG. 4 and FIG. 5, a procedure for generating a plurality of ranked account candidates will be described with a specific example. FIG. 4 is a representation diagram of an account automatic generation order from alphabetical names, where m is the number of characters of the last name, n is the number of characters of the first name, and the value in [] indicates the order of generation. FIG. 5 shows a specific example of the procedure for automatically generating an account candidate (last name: KANIS).
HIMA, name: Genkihiro). Here, the number of account characters is limited to q characters or more and p characters or less.

The application receiving server 130 acquires the first and last names in alphabetical form from the input of the applicant from the terminal 100. Generating ranked account suggestions
The surname j characters and the first name i characters are cut out from the first character of the surname m characters and the first name n characters, and are combined (m, n, j, and i are natural numbers and m ≧ j ≧ 1, n ≧ i ≧ 1). ). Also, as shown in FIG. 5, here, the first name and the last name are combined by a period "." Note that, in addition to the period, a connection using an underbar "_" or a hyphen "-" is also conceivable.

The ranking of the combination of the last name j character and the first name i character which is the key in the automatic generation of a plurality of account candidates is the same as the ordering of each (i, j) cell in the account generation order representation diagram of FIG. Can be considered. In FIG. 4, the order indicated by the value in [] given to the (i, j) cell is the order of the combination of the candidate of last name j character and first name i character. The order of generation given to the expression diagram of FIG. 4 corresponds to the ranking of account candidates in FIG.

In the order of generation in FIG. 4, the (n, m) cell is the first generation group (group 0). Further, a permutation is obtained from the combination of (n, m), and the order of the last name and first name is higher, and the order of first name and last name is next. First, these two are generated from the alphabetical name and surname of the applicant. Example of Figure 5 (last name is KA
NISHIMA, when the name is Genkichiro)
“Kanishima.genkichiro”, “genkichiro.kanishim
a ". These are the first and second place account candidates, respectively.

In general, there is a degree of freedom as to which one is to be selected from the permutation of the last name and first name in the same cell, or which is to be placed at a higher position. In the actual procedure, one of these variations can be selected. In the example of FIG. 5, for the first and subsequent families except for the zeroth family, for the sake of convenience, all unions are generated in the order of first name and last name. However, the ranking in FIG. 5 is not unique.

In the first family, the number of characters of the surname is fixed to j = m, and the number of characters of the first name is changed from 1 to n−1, and account candidates are generated. In the example of FIG. 5, the first family adds the name part to the end of the whole family name and increases it one by one.
“G. Kanishima”, “ge. Kanishima”, “gen.
ima ", ...," genkichir. kanishima ”. The ranking as an account candidate is 0th.
Following the first and second place from the tribe, the third place and so on.

In the second family, the number of characters in the first name is i
= N is fixed, and the number of characters of the last name j is changed in the order from 1 to m−1 to generate each of the account candidates. In the third family, j = m−1 is fixed, i is changed from 1 to n−1, and an account candidate is generated (KANISHIMA, G in FIG. 5).
See the example of generation for enkichiro). The procedure is as follows: j or i is decremented by 1 every other family, and j is fixed or i
This is a procedure of repeating the fixation, and generating an account candidate for all cells that have not been generated so far among the cells corresponding to the fixed value of j or i at each time (FIG. 4). Account candidates are generated according to this procedure for the fourth and subsequent families.

In the above series of generation procedures, both i and j are:
The process ends when a family fixed to 1 is generated. At this point, generation of all account candidates including one or more characters of each of the first and last names is completed. In other words, the termination condition is 2m-1
And 2n, the smaller one is set to s, and the process ends in the s-th group. FIG. 4A shows a case where n <m, and FIG. 4B shows a case where n ≧ m. However, in order to exclude from the account candidates those that do not become more than q characters or less than p characters, in the implementation, the character limit is checked prior to generation, and depending on the value of q, the entire procedure can be performed without leading to the generation of the s group. Can be terminated.

[0024]

As described above, according to the method for automatically assigning an e-mail address of the present invention, the following effects are achieved.

(1) From the name of the applicant for the electronic mail service, an account reflecting the name and an appropriate recommended account of an account which is not used but is usable for the applicant are automatically generated and presented to the applicant. Therefore, a person who does not know the form of the e-mail address can easily obtain the desired e-mail address.

(2) Even after an increase in the number of service users, the rate of early detection of unused subdomains of account candidates increases. That is, an unused account can be presented while avoiding high operation of the server. Also, even after the increase in service users, the rate of applicants who can obtain an appropriate account that reflects their name will increase. As a result, it can be expected that a recommendation account that responds fairly fairly to the expectations of applicants after a certain period of concentration of applications after the service starts can be expected.

(3) It is effective to alleviate the concentration of application for use at the time of starting the service and to equalize the increase in the number of service users.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic block diagram of a system for implementing an electronic mail address automatic assignment method of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of an electronic mail address form.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of a processing flow of automatic e-mail address assignment according to the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a representation diagram of an account automatic generation order from alphabetical names.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a specific example of a procedure for automatically generating an account candidate.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10 E-mail address 11 Account 12 Submain 13 Domain 110 Terminal 120 Communication network 130 Application reception server 140 Submain database

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A method for automatically assigning an e-mail address to an on-line applicant for a public e-mail service at an application reception server, the method comprising: generating a plurality of ranked account candidates; Searches the account candidates in order from the first rank to determine whether the account is an unused account, and as a result, prohibits the use of another person of the e-mail address determined to be usable,
A method of automatically assigning an e-mail address, comprising: a step of making a reservation as a recommended address; and a step of canceling reservation of the account candidate other than the determined e-mail address. 2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the step of generating the ranked plurality of account candidates includes, as an account candidate, a combination of all or a part of the first and last names in alphabetical notation. 2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the electronic mail address is generated so as to be included in an account candidate.