Spam-busting ISP

A new Daytona Beach-based Internet service provider called 695online is offering Nationwide access for -- as its name implies -- $6.95 a month.
But 695online also has another big selling point: It promises to keep junk mail out of customers' in-boxes.

The company's Mail-Block technology scans the return addresses of all incoming e-mail. If an address isn't on the subscriber's list of approved addresses, the sender receives an e-mailed verification request.

To complete delivery of the message, the sender must respond to the verification request. If no response is received or if the return address is faked, the message is deleted.

Since it's highly unlikely that spammers will bother to respond to verification requests, Mail-Block is an effective weapon against junk mail, company president Robert Craddock said.

Craddock said his company's "only sin" is to put a small text plug for the service at the end of customers' outgoing e-mails.

He said 695online uses the data network of telecom giant Qwest Corp. and now has about 3,000 local access numbers across the country. By year's end, Craddock hopes to have more than 30,000 access numbers.

For information, see www.695online.com.

Times-Union systems editor Ed Stansel can be reached via e-mail at estansel@jacksonville.com or by phone at (904) 359-4473.

BACK