At last we can do something about SPAM.

On slow days and at only one of my domains, I receive over 3,000 letters per day; 99% of which I did not ask for or want. Having six domains to work with I can honestly say that I know SPAM is a BIG PROBLEM for the professional or successful Internet entrepreneur.

Before this all I could do was keep shunting off the imaginary email addresses people are being sold. For example, there are days that I receive identical letters from one person addressed to: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it all the way through This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it and then starting over again at A This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it and This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it I have to admire the entrepreneurial ingenuity of the person who sold them the list, but that admiration stops far short of my having to pay for the buyer's stupidity.

Then there are the addresses which were harvested off my web sites years ago when I thought it was a great way to separate my mail into ready to serve compartments. Orders for this would go to one address. Orders for that would go to another one. These addresses were removed years ago, but the compilers are still selling them. Indeed, they are still selling them as OPT-IN and SAFE! Ha!

All of these were shunted off into one package and deleted without ever being looked at. That isn't a viable solution, but it was the only one I have found that works, until now.

Cloudmark (TM), Inc. has (as of 9 October 2003) now extended Spam-Fighting relief to users of Outlook Express. Cloudmarks already had more than 600,000 spam fighters, and now they have at least one more because I joined immediately.

The Outlook Express (R) version of SpamNet (TM), is an "easy-to-use email add-in that protects you from spam and enables you to fight back! Outlook Express users can now join the more than 600,000 users that make up the first and largest spam-fighting community in the world and take advantage of the best performing spam protection available today.

SpamNet is successful because it is the first technology to connect a community of people in real-time, so that the very second a spam attack occurs, pressing the Block button for a particular spam message instantly stops that spam for everyone in the community. This unique, real-time response to spam is the reason SpamNet delivers the highest accuracy and offers exceptional simplicity -- just install it and 95% of your spam is automatically eliminated.

Let's talk about that automatic after talking about the installation. A free 30-day trial of SpamNet 2.0 for Outlook is available for download at http://www.cloudmark.com/spamnet There are two choices there. You can also download a free beta copy of SpamNet. If you aren't comfortable with beta testing, and you probably shouldn't be if you've been on the web less than six months, then opt for the 30-day trial version on the LEFT.

I took the beta route because it promised something like an affiliate program to go with it. Unfortunately, that hasn't materialized yet. After downloading and installing SpamNet I shut the computer down so SpamNet would load upon starting.

Then I opened Outlook Express. 4,000 emails flooded in. That took almost ten minutes. Before SpamNet could begin to work, ALL the emails had to arrive. That took another ten minutes.

When I came back there were only SIX emails left in my IN box.

Everything else had went into the SPAM folder. Six out of 4,000 is far better than the 95% protection promised by cloud mark.

Now, here's the real beauty of SpamNet. Those 4,000 emails which had been deleted from my IN box, were not gone forever.

They weren't even in the DELETE folder. I had access to the SPAM folder and if there are any which I feel should not be in there not only can I take them back out, I can VOTE against them being labeled as SPAM by everyone else in the community.

What does that vote do? Well, actually, you have TWO chances to vote. So let's look at your first chance. Let's say that out of those six emails left in my box there were one or two letters which I considered to be SPAM. I could BLOCK them with one click. That NEGATIVE vote goes directly to Cloudmark for reconsideration. If Cloudmark staff feels I am right then EVERYONE's mail in the community of Spam Fighters will have that letter blocked from their IN box, automatically.

Now for the POSITIVE vote. As I go through the 4,000 rejected emails in the SPAM folder maybe I spot one or two that I know are not SPAM. By UNBLOCKING them I automatically register a protest against that SPAM label being applied against the sender of that email.

Is that important? You bet it is, to anyone that sends orders out by email. AOL's silly spam-blocker not only had my legitimate order-filling letters blocked, it had everything I mailed out to an aol.com address blocked. Eight months after I discovered this AOL finally removed that block. Can YOU stand that long a blacklist?

SpamNet has a Truth Evaluation System (TeS) to guarantee that only valid spam messages are blocked. Remember, SpamNet never deletes an email; it just moves it to the "spam" folder so you never lose email you care about.

SpamNet is a community-based peer-to-peer filtering model. As a result, SpamNet keeps over 95 percent of spam out of your in box automatically, so spam doesn't steal time from your day, or money from your wallet. If a spam does slip through to your in box, all you have to do is click the Block button to remove the message from your in box and the software will notify the entire SpamNet community immediately. This automatically helps stop that spam message from being sent to other members of the SpamNet community.

This is especially wonderful when anyone in the community recognizes a letter as containing a virus. For example: Just minutes after the Sobig virus hit SpamNet was at work shielding 100 percent of its users from the virus that recently harmed millions on the Internet. If you've ever experienced the loss of everything on your computer to a virus, you KNOW it is worth ANY price to protect your computer!

So, how much does this wonderful program cost? Ahem. Get ready to be shocked.
Right now your investment is only $1.99 per month.

Pricing and Availability

New users can download the free beta version of SpamNet for Outlook Express today and take advantage of that special offers available right now. As a thanks you for their support, beta users will lock in a $1.99 per month rate upon the final release of SpamNet and they will also be eligible for free months of subscription just for telling their friends about SpamNet. (As I said, that part has not been initiated yet.)

There's more. The new SpamNet beta also offers support for other popular Web mail programs, such as Hot Mail and MSN, etc.. The software goes an extra mile and supports corporate Exchange environments and POP3 systems such as Yahoo! when using Outlook(R) or Outlook Express.

And don't forget that SpamNet's effectiveness increases every time a new SpamFighter joins its community, so making SpamNet available to millions of Outlook Express users will add double blessings to the more than 600,001 existing SpamNet users -- and beyond.

Outlook Express users will receive benefits, beyond free spam relief, when they sign up for SpamNet during the free beta period, which starts on 9 October of 2003. "Beta users will receive a 50 percent purchasing discount when the final product is released. They will also earn free months of subscription to SpamNet just for referring friends, family or colleagues via Cloudmark's referral program which will be rolled out during the beta process."

In addition, SpamNet installs in just minutes, is extremely user friendly, and is simple to use because it doesn't require constant tweaking, rule configuration or whitelist and blacklist updating.

Oh, now it does offer those tools as an option, but in SpamNet their use is no longer critical.

SpamNet Stands Out

Because SpamNet keeps over 95 percent of spam out of your in box automatically, it doesn't steal time from your day, or money from your wallet. Now THAT'S a real bargain!

Again, a free 30-day trial of SpamNet 2.0 for Outlook Express is available for download at http://www.cloudmark.com/spamnet .

Now for some history:

Cloudmark has been effective at fighting spam since 1998. It leverages this technology to deliver its enterprise solution, Authority, which stops spam at the gateway before it causes lost productivity, saps company resources and creates corporate liability. Authority prevents spam from entering your network by analyzing the DNA of spam to predict whether or not a message is spam and to constantly improve itself.

"Through Authority and SpamNet, Cloudmark offers the most advanced and innovative methods for countering the accelerating spam problem for both the end-user and Enterprise. The company is leapfrogging traditional anti-spam companies and their obsolete techniques with the largest community of SpamFighters and predictive technologies to crack the genetic code of spam."

As you might have guessed, that message came straight from the company's PR department. But I agree with it.

Cloudmark was founded by CTO Jordan Ritter, who also co-founder of Napster, and Vipul Ved Prakash, chief scientist and author of Vipul's Razor.

For more information about Cloudmark, just send your little surfer scooting to visit the company's web site at http://www.cloudmark.com/

Are there any drawbacks to this system? You bet. #1, it is not a good solution for volume users; it takes way too long to scan those 4,000 files. Fact of the matter is, it takes too long to do just 400. But, there's something even worse..

Outlook Express is FLAWED and no amount of patching will rectify the attitude Bill Gates and crowd have. I have gone months, and months, and months without a virus even connecting with my computer. In less than four hours, using Outlook Express -- even with SpamNet installed -- I had a virus.

That virus was NOT spotted by Cloudmark. I saw the stupid thing and KNEW it was a virus and had NO intention of opening that letter. What happened? New mail came in unexpectedly and the letter containing the virus was suddenly highlighted.

That highlighting was all it took. The virus INSTANTLY penetrated my defenses. Sure, I had the grim pleasure of communicating the hazard to Cloudmark, but MY computer was already infected. The glowing pleasure of warning 599,999 other people is not worth it to me.

What IS the solution? Get your own domain. For five bucks a month you can have your own 500 meg domain with your own ONLINE mail program. That program does NOT open letter files on your computer until you specifically tell it to. You can highlight the letter and DELETE it without it getting ON your computer.

What I now do is use my online mail program to delete that 95% of my mail that I know is spam, and THEN use SpamNet as a backup to check the remaining 5%. Nothing I know of is 100% safe, but this is the best I can come up with and it has worked for me for months, and months, and months -- even with 4,000 emails a day pouring in here.

the end

NOTE: Outlook and Outlook Express are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corp. All other product and company names herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.