We at NetGate recognize that spam is a serious problem. We've watched, fought, and suffered, as the flow of junk mail has grown from a trickle to a flood. Spam is no longer a minor annoyance but instead a serious problem, and a drain on both business and personal productivity. We're feed up and we're going to do something about it. We've done an extensive analysis and have developed a plan that we believe will reduce the spam in your mailbox to almost zero. Our new aggressive anti-spam program will take the control of email away from the spammers and give it back to you.

Over the years we have employed various policies and procedures in an effort to eliminate spam. And, to our credit we do stop thousands of pieces of spam per day. But, no matter what we do spammers continue to find ways to deliver their messages to your mailbox. Unfortunately, controlling and eliminating spam has become a complex global issue. Since email is based on a distributed open model with no central control mechanism there really isn't any way to stop spam from finding you.

But, we don't think the answer is to abandon your email account. There is a better way. We recently evaluated our mail distribution system and several next generation anti-spam technologies and we're happy to announce that we are taking some aggressive steps that will eliminate 95% to 100% of all spam.

We have partnered with Postini to provide you with both spam and virus filtering. We looked at several technologies and we believe that Postini offers the best solution available. Postini utilizes automatic (there are no complex rules to set up) context based content filtering to detect and quarantine spam. A simple web based interface allows you to block junk email based on five categories:

• Sexually Explicit: Inappropriate sexually-oriented messages.
• Get Rich Quick: Bothersome schemers and scammers.
• Racially Insensitive: Insulting jokes and perspectives.
• Special Offers: "Too good to be true" email messages.
• Bulk Mail: Commercially unsolicited email.

It also allows you to set the content filter to one of five levels allowing you to configure the filters to a level of protection that meets your needs. You can also set up approved and blacklisted senders to further tailor the filters.

With this new level of service you also get email attachment virus detection. Postini has partnered with McAfee, a leading anti-virus detection company to bring you state of the art virus detection.

All potential virus infected and junk mail messages are quarantined for 14 days. As a reminder, you'll receive a regular message directing you to the Message Center to review detained email. If a potentially dangerous virus-infected message is detected, you are immediately notified via email.

Postini Spam and Virus filtering is included as a standard feature with most NetGate Internet Access services and is available as a feature to all NetGate Hosting accounts. The cost is minimal, and the gain is huge.

We have designed our mail routing architecture to prevent spammers from further address harvesting. This change won't have an immediate impact on the amount of spam you receive but over time it should have a significant effect.

We're excited about these changes! Anything we can do to take spam out of email is exciting. And please consider signing up for the Postini anti-spam filtering feature as it is an incredible tool to help prevent both spam and viruses from reaching your mailbox.

If you do receive an unsolicited e-mail please forward it to spam@netgate.net. Any mail sent to that address will be forwarded to Postini for analysis.

We hope these measures will enhance your experience. Please let us (support@netgate.net) know if you have any questions.