ClicVU,
New York, a provider of Web advertising services, debuted a
service last week that allows consumers to avoid unsolicited
e-mails by letting them send and receive messages without
having to reveal their e-mail addresses.
The service, Spamex, creates anonymous e-mail addresses
that people can use to have online information -- such as
newsletters, sweepstakes entries or transactions -- forwarded
to their legitimate e-mail addresses. When users begin to
receive unsolicited e-mails, they can disable
that Spamex e-mail address and create a new one, the company
said.
"The strength of the service is that as soon as you start
receiving something unsolicited, you know that that one
address has been compromised," said Justin Greene, co-CEO of
ClicVU. "Once you know that, you can just cut it off."
Spamex allows consumers to create five active e-mail
addresses for free, said Michael Cassara, co-CEO of ClicVU.
Users can sign up for more accounts, from 15 to 500, at costs
ranging from $14.95 to $49.95, he said.
The company also offers consumers a 20 percent discount if
they opt in to include banner ads in their accounts.
Cassara said the e-mails are delivered to users' real
e-mail addresses with text at the top of the message notifying
them that they have received a message at that particular
Spamex account. The e-mails also provide users with a link to
disable the e-mail address -- which is a Spamex-generated,
random number that precedes @spamex.com -- if the message was
unsolicited.
Meanwhile, Greene said legitimate online marketers should
not be affected by the service, as long as the user opted in
to receive a marketer's e-mail offer.
"If somebody uses a Spamex account to subscribe to
something and they're receiving messages they want to get,
they're going to receive the message," Greene said. "It only
enables the user to not get the messages they do not want."
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