SANTA CLARA, CA - February 27, 2001 - Mailshell.com, the free email management service for subscribing safely to more than 100,000 web services without risk of receiving junk email or spam, today introduced the Mailshell Subscription Network (http://partners.mailshell.com), the most advanced marketplace for low cost, long-term online subscribers. Mailshell allows marketers and web service providers to name their own user acquisition price, and currently drives long-term subscribers to more than 1,300 companies via its network of more than 1,000 affiliates.
"Analysts predict that marketers will send more than 268 billion commercial emails per year by 2003," said Tonny Yu, president and CEO of Mailshell.com. "The current email infrastructure will soon collapse unless a balance is reached between the needs of marketers and users."
Mailshell's patent pending technology (http://www.mailshell.com), which was recently cited by The Wall Street Journal as among "the best ways to organize your email" and "the best ways to stop spam", acts as an email address escrow service to prevent junk email. The service creates a new email address for every subscription, thereby providing marketers with a private and exclusive channel to each user. Mailshell users can find and subscribe to free services, easily manage commercial email and take control of unsolicited email and spam.
"Users should be empowered to judge for themselves which emails they should or should not receive and marketers should not waste their time or money on people who have not explicitly requested those offers," added Yu.
By providing samples and reviews of commercial email content, Mailshell matches commercial email senders and recipients efficiently, enabling a more targeted exchange. 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 an interested, qualified audience. Senders also have to deal with less user confusion, email address changes, and subscriber management functions.
Despite email marketing's growing popularity, many users complain about the lack of control they have over the flood of poorly targeted and unwelcome offers. This saturation of users' inboxes breeds declining response rates. Marketers' ROI decreases while users' frustration increases.
"Although the volume of online acquisition vehicles and opt-in networks has skyrocketed, the quality of their products has stagnated," added Tonny Yu. "Companies trade users' email addresses and are then surprised when they don't see profitable a ROI from those users. A revolving door of subscribers rarely translates into profitable customers."
Unlike conventional opt-in services or 'cost-per-click' programs, Mailshell charges marketers only for complete subscription referrals. Mailshell does not charge marketers greater fees based on the number of data fields delivered. Users are not incented by Mailshell to subscribe through lotteries, promotions or sweepstakes.
About Mailshell:
Mailshell (http://www.mailshell.com) offers Internet users the first complete, simple, and totally free solution to manage commercial email. Users gain complete control over their email and their privacy without any changes in their email setup. Mailshell allows users to subscribe safely, by providing reviews and samples of the best email lists so that people are properly informed before they give out their email address; protect privacy, via a series of transparent and private email addresses - 'mail shells' - that only reveal what the user explicitly has given permission to reveal; and take control, via Mailshell's advanced filtering technology allowing users to instantly and permanently stop any email they do not want.
In efforts to promote a sustainable infrastructure for commercial email, Mailshell created and advocates a series of ten 'mailrights' designed to balance the needs of email users and marketers. For more information see http://mailrights.mailshell.com.
Mailshell was founded in January of 1999 and is based in Santa Clara, CA. Mailshell is a proud member of TRUSTe, the premier privacy seal program worldwide and independent organization dedicated to building consumer trust and confidence in the Internet.
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