Goodmail, badmail; Red Cross vs. SPAM
Date: October 27, 2005Source: prnewswire.com
Goodmail Systems(TM), creators of CertifiedEmail - a new class of e-mail to help shield consumers from spam, fraud and phishing, announced today that the American Red Cross is participating in the charter program for the Goodmail CertifiedEmail service.
Goodmail also announced today that leading global providers of email, America Online, Inc. and Yahoo! Inc. will deploy the Goodmail CertifiedEmail service as part of their strategy to protect their users from email scams. The Goodmail CertifiedEmail service identifies e-mail from accredited senders, marks messages with a trust symbol indicating that they are safe to open and
assures delivery to the inboxes of intended recipients.
"As the popularity of online fundraising increases, hackers have tried to
capitalize on the generosity of the American people. Our organization works
hard to protect the public from misleading, unauthorized and fraudulent
fundraising," said Kimberly Reckner, Lead Technical Liaison of Online
Fundraising for the American Red Cross. "Goodmail's CertifiedEmail service
will distinguish authentic communications from fraudulent solicitations and
provide an extra layer of security for our donors."
The Red Cross provides donors and friends with current disaster updates
and stories about the beneficiaries they aid. The Goodmail CertifiedEmail
service will ensure that donation acknowledgements arrive in donors' inboxes
and not in junk or bulk mail folders, which has proven to be a challenge, even
for legitimate organizations.
Every message that is sent through the Goodmail CertifiedEmail service is
embedded with a cryptographically-secure token. These tokens must be detected
by participating Internet service providers (ISPs) before the message can be
delivered to a recipient's inbox identified as a CertifiedEmail message. The
email is clearly labeled with a CertifiedEmail symbol in the user's inbox
indicating that the message can be opened with confidence and that it is from
an authentic and trusted sender. As a result, Goodmail's CertifiedEmail
service improves the consumer email experience, provides greater benefits to
legitimate senders and enables mailbox providers with a secure platform to
provide premium delivery services to qualified businesses that increasingly
rely on electronic communications to service their customers.
"We are creating this new class of email so recipients can be assured that
they're receiving secure emails from legitimate senders," said Richard
Gingras, chairman and CEO of Goodmail Systems. "It is of critical importance
to protect the good name and reputation of a respected and valued organization
such as the Red Cross - a charity that provides a service so critical to the
American people - in the event that their likeness is copied for illegal uses
such as phishing scams and identity theft. Now consumers who receive emails
from the American Red Cross can be assured their messages are safe to open."
Availability of the Goodmail CertifiedEmail service through AOL and Yahoo!
is expected in the coming months. AOL and Yahoo! Mail combined represent
approximately 50% of the U.S. consumer email audience.
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