Press Releases
Mailshell Thrives as Anti-Spam Message
Strikes a Chord Among Users
Email Management Service Adds 500,000th Registered
User, Expands Features
SANTA CLARA, CA., August 30, 2001 - Mailshell today announced
that its breakthrough spam-prevention and email management
service (http://www.mailshell.com) this week added its 500,000th
registered user, more than 400,000 of whom have registered
since January of this year. The company also today unveiled
a suite of premium features that simplifies and manages email
while preventing junk email and spam.
"We solicit and receive tons of feedback from our users
about services they want added to Mailshell," said Tonny Yu,
president of Mailshell. "We've attracted a core of web-savvy,
passionate and vocal users and it's a tremendous help to get
such direct feedback from such a discerning audience. It helps
us set priorities and it keeps the bar high for our service."
Mailshell's success is consistent with users' growing frustration
over increasing volumes of junk email and spam. Industry estimates
indicate that 62.3 billion junk email messages will be sent
to U.S. Internet users during this year. Major ISPs are focusing
on junk mail this summer: Hotmail recently upgraded its spam-blocking
service and Earthlink launched a national advertising campaign
focusing on junk email.
Mailshell lets users create a custom email domain (e.g.
@username.com) and then use it to create unlimited, disposable
email addresses. If any address begins receiving unwanted
email the user simply cancels that disposable address. Mailshell
forwards email sent to the custom domain to the users' existing
email account, allowing users to keep their current email
address.
The premium features are packaged and priced at $29.95 during
the promotional launch period, offering users several advantages
over the basic service including:
- Users choose a custom domain instead of a subdomain (i.e.
'@yourname.com' instead of '@yourname.mailshell.com'),
- Incoming content can be forwarded to multiple email-enabled
devices including a cell phone, PDA or PC;
- No advertisements appended to the bottom of emails;
- 400% more storage space for emails (Mailshell's basic
service offers 60% more than Yahoo Mail and five times as
much as Hotmail);
- Access to web-based email messages without signing in
to Mailshell's web site.
Mailshell's patent-pending technology acts like a 'Caller
ID' system for email so people can identify, and 'unsubscribe'
from, any list, person or company at any time. By creating
a unique email identity for each party with whom they
do business, Mailshell users can automatically recognize
the sender of commercial email. If users don't like what
they receive, they can simply unsubscribe by checking
a box.
"Among the best ways of preventing junk email is to
treat an email address like a credit card number, revealing
it rarely and judiciously," added Yu. "Mailshell acts
like an email escrow service that does not share the user's
private email address with anyone. Instead, it serves
as a middleman between users and their various email relationships."
Mailshell was recently dubbed "priceless'' by Forbes
magazine and among "the best ways to organize your email''
and "the best ways to stop spam'' by The Wall Street
Journal. In an effort to promote a sustainable infrastructure
for commercial email, Mailshell created and advocates 10 'mailrights'
(http://mailrights.mailshell.com)
designed to balance the needs of email users and marketers.
Mailshell was founded in January 1999. The company is based
in Santa Clara, with an additional office in San Francisco.
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Contact:
Stefan Pollack, Mailshell, (310) 556-4443, press@stefan.mailshell.com
