ManyMe.com Puts Email Users Back in Control
While commercial email services generally do a good job of blocking spam, legitimate senders are still clogging inboxes with relentless marketing messages and unrequested information. At the outset, users likely opted-in to a mailing list, perhaps by agreeing to a privacy policy without reading it (who does?). Over time, however, persistent messages can become unwanted, and because many people don’t trust the unsubscribe function, or find it inconvenient, email keeps building in their inboxes, threatening to render them unusable. Such messages are often referred to as “graymail,” because while they are clearly bulk email, they were initially “solicited” and therefore don’t fit the standard definition of spam email.
ManyMe’s free service addresses this issue by creating effective new layers of control over inbox access, while also delivering greater online privacy and security. It does this by making it easy to use substitute email addresses, called aliases, whenever needed for an online registration, or even when disclosing an address in conversation or filling out a paper form. ManyMe automatically remembers each address, and email that passes its unique filtering is forwarded to your primary inbox, so you only have one inbox to manage. Assuming that one’s ManyMe username is not identifying, ManyMe aliases cannot be traced back to your primary email account, even if you reply to a message.
ManyMe aliases are particularly effective in stopping unwanted email because they permit new layers of email filtering. Instead of simply blocking or permitting email from specific senders, ManyMe provides much more granular filtering based on the alias itself, the address of the sender using the alias, the community of senders who have used the alias without your objection, and even future senders. Using aliases freely and consistently expands the body of email that can be controlled with these new filtering dimensions, and enables you to maintain an uncluttered email inbox.
These powerful new inbox access controls are brought out to the user in ManyMe’s visual, in-message interface, called the ManyMe Control Strip, which provides a simple but very effective means of bi-directional communication between ManyMe and its users. The control strip appears in a rectangular block that is inserted at the top of messages that ManyMe forwards to your primary inbox. The control strip displays the envelope “From” address of the sender, the ManyMe “To” address used by the sender, and delivery options for both. Clicking on a delivery option takes you into your ManyMe dashboard to confirm your instructions, and future messages will be processed accordingly.
For example, if an alias starts to spread to new senders, ManyMe will alert you and provide a simple option to control the consequences by pre-emptively blocking any new senders who attempt to use the address; the address may continue to spread, but you won’t care. If you no longer want to receive any email on an alias, you can easily disable it, and all email sent to it will stop immediately—it’s like an “instant unsubscribe.” In both cases, your other ManyMe addresses, and the senders using them, are unaffected.
ManyMe’s approach eliminates the need for throwaway email accounts, “burner” accounts, disposable email addresses and temp email. While all of these methods provide alternatives to your primary email address, they impose the inconvenience of managing multiple inboxes with far less control. Inevitably these accounts become overrun with graymail and unusable, with potentially desirable messages lost amongst the clutter.
Now, instead of using different email accounts for different purposes, you can have the convenience of a single account served by unlimited addresses, each with powerful controls for keeping your primary inbox clean.