A Santa Clara company says it has a
fool-proof spam buster.
Internet users type in the e-mail address ``nojunk@mailshell.com'' when
they register at a Web site.
Mailshell.com creates a new and disposable proxy address for the user
that is submitted in lieu of the person's real address.
The idea is to be able to turn off -- or more precisely,
redirect -- a flood of spam that might start to flow after one visits or
registers at a Web site. A user can simply close off the proxy address to
stop the spam without having to shut down his or her real address.
``It is a fully functional e-mail address, unique to that user and that
list,'' said Eytan Urbas, Mailshell.com's vice president of marketing.
``If you want to unsubscribe you can close off that mail shell.''
Mailshell was founded in January 1999 and launched its site last
August. So far, 200,000 users have signed up, Urbas said. The 20-person
company has filed for a patent on its technology that automatically
creates a ``shell'' around a user's true e-mail address, masking it with
Mailshell's no-junk label.
The technology matches the sender to the unique shell address before
forwarding the message to the user's real mailbox. From the user's point
of view nothing looks different, Urbas said. And once registered the user
doesn't have to do anything differently.
The service is free to consumers and includes an e-mail management
system, Urbas said. Users can review samples of mail lists before they
subscribe and can customize their preferences for different lists.
Mailshell also allows users to set expiration dates for each e-mail
shell address to guarantee that one-time purchases, sweepstakes entries or
surveys don't unleash a spam avalanche.
Mailshell hopes to make money by selling sponsorships and by providing
its services to portals or ISPs.
The company's quest against spam includes another site http://www.mailrights.org/, a
non-profit, the company hopes will be fully functional later this year. On
it, Mailshell has posted a 10-point e-mail user's bill of rights.
``Let's agree on a set of rules that are fair to all parties,'' Urbas
said. ``Fair to marketers and fair to users. Then the market will
decide.''
