August 4, 2004

AOL's spam eraser

Spanm is a huge problem - especially for AOL's millions of users. Knowing this, AOL bought spam company MailBlocks which uses a challenge response system that blocks all email that is in your address book of approved senders.

I hate challenge response systems as not only do I have to check my in-box, but I also have to check the filter to let in all the email that was blocked that I DO want to receive.

Reuters writes America Online, the world's largest Internet services provider, has purchased privately held Mailblocks, developer of a service designed to block junk e-mail, AOL said Wednesday.

Terms of the deal, which closed in July, were not disclosed.

The acquisition is the latest move to consolidate a highly fragmented industry of more than 100 specialized providers of anti-spam technology, which analysts say is likely to shrink to a handful of suppliers offering a mix of related technologies.

Toward that end, security software provider Symantec acquired corporate e-mail anti-spam vendor Brightmail for $370 million in May.

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