Patent ID: 7979466

Claim:
A method comprising the steps of: a) hosting an online file storage on one or more server computers communicatively coupled to a network; and b) receiving, from a file owner interface accessible to a file owner after authentication and hosted on the one or more server computers hosting the online file storage, a selection of at least one file from a list of one or more files uploaded exclusively by the file owner, a designation of the at least one file as an automatic access file, a time period and an authorization for an unsolicited file transfer of the at least one file to a predetermined recipient after an expiration of the time period, wherein the file owner interface is configured to: i. view and edit the one or more files, one or more access permissions associated with each of the one or more files, the time period and the expiration of the time period; and ii. send an email to the predetermined recipient, wherein the email comprises a user interface control comprising one or more HTML tag attributes configured to access the at least one file and wherein, responsive to the expiration of the time period, the user interface control is updated to reflect the authorization for the unsolicited file transfer and is embedded into the email, and wherein, responsive to the predetermined recipient accessing and downloading the at least one file, the one or more HTML tag attributes are updated to reflect removal of the authorization.