E-mailing ZYTRAX

Like most of the rest of the world who operate web-sites, we spend an inordinate amount of time deleting SPAM. Much of it comes from web harvesting programs.

We've had enough.

It stops us providing quick responses to users you take the time to mail us and it's dangerous in that it's too easy to delete 'real' non-SPAM mail.

We have decided to try and do something about it. We trust the negative effects will be minimal but please mail us and express your views.

We hope it goes without saying that we DO NOT RESELL email addresses and you may wish to read our policy on this matter.

E-mail changes

We have made a number of changes:

1. We have two mail links on every page as a matter of policy.

   • 'mail-us' at the top of each page may be used if you do not have a configured mail agent, for eaxample, you are away from the office or using another PC. This automatically adds a special string to the subject line that tells us the mail is good.

   • 'webmaster at zytrax' (at foot of every page). This requires a configured mail agent. It uses a simple script to 'mangle' (highly technical term) the email address to defeat mail harvesting programs. It also adds the string 'A-U:' or 'A-Z:' to the beginning of the subject line. For the quickest service DO NOT DELETE this string - though you may replace anything to the RIGHT of the ':'.

2. Where mail links appear in pages you may see the name of the mailbox followed by 'at zytrax' rather than a traditional mail address of the format mail@mailbusters.com. Clicking this link will generate a valid email address if you have a configured email client. To manually construct a valid email address just use the normal format 'mailbox-name@zytrax.com'.

3. When you use a clickable e-mail link the string 'A-U:' or 'A-Z:' is added to the subject line. For the quickest service DO NOT DELETE this string - though you may replace anything to the RIGHT of the ':'.

4. We have replaced a number of standard mail boxes to reduce the SPAM load. We advise you to always use the clickable e-mail links where practical.

5. We have implemented an anti-spam technique known as greylisting as a means of reducing the risks of false-positives that can be associated with many anti-spam filtering techniques.

6. Finally, mail which does not contain valid strings is NOT deleted but instead is placed in a special 'potential junk' folder and inspected every week or so - hopefully we will always get your mail but it may take a while.

It is a matter of some regret that we have had to implement these policies. Regrettably there are a number of folks and organisations out there who believe the primary purpose of freedom is to abuse it.