Everyone loathes spam email, and while the quantity of it continues to increase over the years, it has become less of a problem due to continued innovation by companies like MailChannels, based out of downtown Vancouver. A New Ventures BC competitor in 2004, MailChannels has quickly become a world leader in email spam filtering. Their software is designed for enterprise level customers: ISPs, large companies, governments and educational institutions.
Selling anti-spam software to large enterprise customers can be tricky, since the open source Apache SpamAssassin software is free, effective, and widely used. Rather than compete directly, MailChannels’ Traffic Control software works with SpamAssassin to provide an extra layer of filtering. When receiving email from a questionable source, the software deliberately stalls the connection; legitimate mail servers will be patient and wait to finish sending, but spam bots will usually give up and move on. This technique alone blocks 90% of spammers.
Company CEO Ken Simpson says MailChannels is in its second profitable year with annual growth of 500 percent. This level of success has allowed them to give back to the community. They recently donated infrastructure to support the SpamAssassin project, and the Traffic Control software is free for non-commercial users that receive less than 10,000 connections per day.