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Reading spam can be a dangerous and costly affair. With so many email scams abound and worms hidden in attachments, corporate sysadmins are always on the lookout for the ultimate email spam blocker. Well , SMX, the Auckland based company may have found it as SMX co-founder Thom Hooker puts it - "All of our competitors say you won't get any spam, but with us it's true."

The Auckland company sells its Secure MX spam-filtering product as a subscription service, starting at $4.95 per mailbox per month with lower prices for government departments and educational institutions. SMX has begun looking for venture capital to boost its staff numbers and expand overseas.

Managed e-mail is a business model that's gaining popularity, Mr Hooker says, and SMX's clients include Sealord, the Racing Board and Downer Engineering.

How does it work ?

Instead of shuttling spam to a junk mail inbox, the technology SMX uses bounces the e-mail back to the mail server that sent it, as if the recipient's address did not exist. The error message in the bounced message contains a link to a webpage where the sender can contact SMX to have their message sent through. But since most spam comes from faked e-mail addresses, this rarely happens.

Now with six staff and 15 months old, SMX is trying to win over government departments. Mr Hooker owns 35 per cent of the company, and fellow-founder Jesse Ball owns another 35 per cent.

Auckland Spam Killers Looking for investors source