SANTA CLARA, CA - August 17, 2000 - In response to growing demand for user privacy and control on the Internet, Mailshell.com today unveiled its free email management service that protects user privacy and eliminates all junk email before it reaches a user's inbox. The service requires no reconfiguration or changes to users' existing email set-up.
"Email is the most used and abused Internet software application," said Tonny Yu, founder and CEO of Mailshell. "The current email infrastructure naively trusts email senders not to abuse the system, yet the volume of junk commercial email indicates that this honor system has collapsed."
Mailshell offers the first complete, simple, effective, and totally free solution to junk email and email privacy. The company has created a new, robust, secure, abuse-resistant and backward-compatible email infrastructure for people to more efficiently manage their incoming email.
The initial version of Mailshell.com is focused on business-to-business mailing lists and commercial opt-in email, the greatest sources of email privacy violations. The main user benefits of the initial version of Mailshell.com are that it can:
- Prevent junk. Users can subscribe more wisely. Mailshell's Yahoo-like email directory portal highlights, organizes, reviews, and provides samples of the best email lists so that people are properly warned before they give out their email address. Users can easily get the fun and useful information that they want. Instead of visiting multiple sites, users can sign up for an unlimited number of lists by filling out just one universal subscription form on Mailshell's portal. Users can opt to receive their content via their existing email inbox or via their own Mailshell web-based email accounts. There is no charge for either option.
- Stop junk. Users can unsubscribe easily. Mailshell's advanced filtering technology is able to automatically and accurately identify and categorize incoming emails. If users do not like what they are receiving, Mailshell will stop it instantly and permanently. Users are more organized, have more control, and are more productive.
- Protect privacy. Users subscribe anonymously. Mailshell creates a new and separate anonymous email address, a 'mail shell' - for each email list and only reveals what the user explicitly has given permission to reveal. Much like the old person-to-person phone call, the system uses the 'mail shell' address to match and authenticate each party's identity, rather than just the recipient's. Businesses can prevent the online tracking of their employees.
"Our experience indicates that people now demand even greater respect from online marketers than even a few months ago," said Farhad Mohit, chairman of BizRate.com, a online marketplace governed by consumer ratings that links buyers to sellers. "Mailshell's focus on user control repre sents the next generation of commercial email management."
Mailshell's system is also designed to help email marketers. By providing samples and reviews of the content, Mailshell matches email senders and recipients efficiently, enabling a more targeted exchange of information and services. Users have the freedom to receive only the content to which they wish to subscribe, while senders have the confidence of knowing they are gaining the attention of interested, qualified audiences.
"Junk email is in the eye of the beholder," adds Yu. "Our goal is to offer a comprehensive email management service that increases users' productivity and control while maintaining their privacy. Users should be empowered to judge for themselves which emails they should or should not receive."
Prior to founding Mailshell, Tonny Yu created Computer ESP, the Internet's leading price comparison engine. The company was acquired by CNET in 1998 and renamed Shopper.com
About Mailshell
Mailshell is a free service to stop junk email. The company's breakthrough abuse-resistant email infrastructure helps people more efficiently manage and control their incoming mail. Ultimately, Mailshell's goal is to dramatically improve the way all businesses and people communicate and exchange information worldwide.
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