LegalShield, the world’s leading provider of legal and privacy protection plans, today announced the appointment of Arnold Blinn as Chief Architect, effective immediately.

Reporting to Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bell, Mr. Blinn will be responsible for the design and modernisation the company’s technology, as well as ensuring the architectural integrity and consistency across the entire organisation, both in the US and UK. He will also be responsible for guiding technology investments at many levels within the organisation and will work closely with the marketing and business teams across the globe to ensure the systems are effectively serving customer needs.

Prior to joining LegalShield, Mr. Blinn was the Chief Product Architect at GoDaddy where he spent seven years helping to redefine the product architecture, integration, and technical strategy of the company.

Before GoDaddy, Mr. Blinn was a Partner Architect at Microsoft Corporation. He spent 17 years working on the Windows Phone, Xbox, Windows Live, and MSN in a variety of roles, driving product teams and division level product architecture.

Mr. Blinn has 40 patents issued and another 40 pending in electronic commerce, digital rights management, photo manipulation, domains and other online services. He holds a B.S. degree in Mathematics (Computer Science) from Carnegie Mellon University.

“Arnold brings a level of leadership, experience and results that will materially increase our ability to pursue our just cause – to protect and empower more people,” said Jeff Bell. “In our 48th year, LegalShield continues to serve more people with legal and privacy management services. Arnold brings a tremendous amount of technical and large-scale web services expertise, dedicated to meeting customer needs and expectations. It is an honor to have him join us.”

Mr. Blinn said: “I’m excited to join a company with such large ambitions, which creates an exciting opportunity not only for me but also for the entire LegalShield family. I look forward to working closely with Jeff and all my new colleagues, as we create a customer experience for legal services and identity protection that is second to none.”