Looking to cash in on the barrage of unsolicited e-mails clogging inboxes
nationwide, anti-virus software firm McAfee.com on
Tuesday announced the rollout a branded version of the recently-acquired
‘SpamKiller’ service for businesses and consumers.
McAfee said ‘SpamKiller’, which was acquired from Norway-based Novasoft, would be released as a managed service
that helps PC users block spam from e-mail inboxes and track the source ISP
of the mailer.
With spam on the rise — researchers say a typical consumer will receive
1,500 pieces of spam a year — McAfee has made a bold play to cash in on
this lucrative market for anti-spam services, touting ‘SpamKiller’ as the
“perfect alternative.”
“SpamKiller helps stop spam email, tracks the mail back to the source ISP
and sends complaints to the spammer’s service provider, while automatically
returning a false “bounced” email message to the spammer,” McAfee said.
The company said the software would be perfect for small- to medium-sized
businesses and consumers who lack the resources to implement high-cost
anti-spam software.
The software, which is priced at $29.95, connects directly to a user’s POP3
or MAPI-compatible email account and scans all incoming messages for
addresses of known spammers, McAfee said.
It said ‘SpamKiller’ would then employ filtering protocols that examine the
subject line, body of text, message header and country code for trigger
words or phrases commonly found in unsolicited e-mails. Once detected, the
spam is automatically barred from the user’s inbox.
‘SpamKiller’ has been programmed to go a step further by automatically
returning a false “bounced” e-mail message to the spam generator, a task
that attempts to signal that the address is inactive.
“Spammers will often respond by “scrubbing” their lists of such addresses,
helping to spare users from future mailings and saving them from the hassle
of having to unsubscribe from multiple email lists. SpamKiller also retraces
the route of the spam message back to the mail server and can be configured
to automatically send a complaint on the recipient’s behalf to the spammer’s
service provider, system administrators, or any other address the user
chooses,” McAfee said.
The software, which will go up against similar services offered by Brightmail and SpamCop, also allows users to create a
“friends” list to safeguard against the deletion of legitimate e-mails.
McAfee said ‘SpamKiller’ would join its Privacy Service line of anti-abuse
services. The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company also hawks PC security and
management application services and products for consumers and small to
medium-sized businesses over the Internet.
