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Vanquish Pro » FAQ
What is Vanquish?
Vanquish is an email feature enhancement offered by leading ISPs and web email services. It blocks spam and virtually all undesirable email, while admitting email from anyone you would prefer to hear from - even from people with whom you have had no prior contact. Someone with a legitimate reason for contacting you, personally, can do so easily.
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What is spam?
Spam is any email that you wish you hadn't received. Perhaps you were insulted or offended by the content - or more likely, the downloading and inspection of it was a waste of your time.
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How did people avoid spam before?
Before Vanquish, defense against spam fell into 7 categories:
1. Avoid publishing or circulating your email address. If distribution is necessary, disguise it so that 'robots' are less likely to harvest it from the web and newsgroups _ joe-nospam (at) aol.com. Remove "-nospam" and type "@".
This annoys legitimate senders, because they cannot click a link or type it as it as printed. Eventually spammers get the address by surreptitiously harvesting the Cc lines of senders that included your address at some time in the past.
2. Use the filtering feature of your email software to search for traits that are likely to indicate spam. This requires ongoing maintenance and it is an imperfect art. Spammers know the words that trigger filters, and legitimate email may be discarded without your knowledge.
3. Redirect incoming mail through a third-party for filtering. Filters compromise privacy by allowing your mail to be inspected before you see it. They miss much of the spam and often block important messages. Finally, filters apply a form of community censorship to a decision that should remain personal. Others decide what you should see.
4. Compare all senders against your address list of friends. This is a good technique for verifying that mail is from an existing contact. But often, we need to receive mail from a stranger or old friend - especially in business, when a new client makes contact. Also, if an existing contact changes their email address this technique may block their message.
5. Accept messages only from verified 'sent from' addresses. This technique presumes that anonymity is the problem. It is not. There are legitimate reasons to send or receive messages without disclosing your address. Furthermore, disclosure doesn't ensure that a message will be desirable.
Vanquish uses digital certificates to prevent a hacker from assuming the privileges of a 'bonded' sender. But we do not disclose - nor do we even know - the sender identities.
6. Accept messages only within a trusted community. Like a Good Housekeeping™ seal, some programs impose a community standard of decency and behavior: (a) As with filters services, it assumes that you subscribe to the same standards and tastes as everyone else. (b) It sets of a system of "courts" and to arbitrate, judge and punish transgressions. It is inherently flawed (see next method)
7. Pass legislation that criminalizes the sending of spam. Although well intended, legal solutions are wholly ineffective. Email can be diverted outside of legal jurisdiction. Additionally, blatant scams contain disclaimers that are impossible to refute. E.g. "You are getting this message because you or someone you know has requested..." or "Here is a reply to your request form which was received on..."
Moreover, the burden should not be on the recipient to refute sender familiarity. With Vanquish, senders risk something tangible when directing messages at strangers.
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Must I continue to avoid placing my address in ads, new groups, and business card?
No. With Vanquish, your email address can be widely disseminated. For example, Fred writes an article on classic Chevy engines for an automotive magazine. The byline shows his regular email address. Fred is not worried that the address will attract unsolicited bulk mail. He is confident that he will only receive mail from readers who share his passion for classic engines or closely related interests.
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Is Vanquish a filter?
No. Filters are imperfect and require ongoing maintenance. They can also compromise security and delay your mail.
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How does Vanquish stop spam?
Once you download Vanquish - or your ISP or mail provider offers the service - you can set Vanquish in three progressively vigilant modes of protection. In its most lenient mode, strangers who send e-mail are required to respond to a challenge (see demo) prior to their e-mail being delivered. This foils automated bulk mail senders, who make up the largest share of spam. In this mode of protection automated bulk senders who wish to send mail to you will be required to guarantee your satisfaction by including a penalty button in their message. This guarantee gives the recipient the ability, and authority, to instantly let the sender know their e-mail is not welcome by clicking the penalty button. When the penalty button has been triggered, the sender's cash guarantee is instantly debited. Knowing that you now possess this ability, a sender will include this guarantee only if they are near certain you will welcome their message.
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What is guaranteed?
The sender is guaranteeing that the recipient will not be annoyed with his message. The penalty button proves that the sender has cash at risk and has accepted that risk for the privilege of pushing his message into the recipient's mailbox.. In more common terms it would be said, "the message is bonded"
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What is a bond?
A bond is simply a satisfaction guarantee posted by the sender of an e-mail that the recipient will not find their contact unwanted.
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Why should I request messages, sent to me, be bonded?
Requesting a bond sends the message that your time and resources are of value and that the sender should take this into consideration before they send their message. The actual bond is quite small (typically 5¢) but an automated spam mailer sending millions of messages a day will not take this request lightly.
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Must everyone that sends to me guarantee (or bond) his or her message?
No. You can select from three levels of defense, each with an escalating level of protection. In its most trusting mode, the following cases would not require a guarantee and would not be challenged:
- Anyone in your address book.
- Anyone that you have written to.
- Anyone replying to a message "Subject:" that originated from you.
- Any Website that you have requested information from.
In fact, under the above examples the sender will not even be aware that Vanquish is protecting your mailbox.
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How does bonding work and is there a cost per message?
With Vanquish Smart Bond Technology™ bonding is automatic! Each time a Vanquish user sends email, their PC determines if the message must carry a small portion of the users remaining bonding potential. Only mail directed to Vanquish-protected addresses who are also strangers count against a sender's bond. There is no cost per message as this small liability (typically 5¢ per message) is added back into the sender's bond if the recipient does not penalize the sender within 3 days. Think of it as affixing a 5cent postage stamp to a letter. The recipient then automatically returns the stamp to sender after 3 days.
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Must senders deposit cash in advance?
No. New accounts include a cash bond which support many simultaneous messages. In practice, the user can send many times this number of messages, because the bond applies only to other Vanquish users and only to those who are also strangers. Non-commercial users needn't ever deposit funds to send a large number of bonded messages each day.
There are two exceptions: Senders who are penalized often or who send many hundreds of messages each day may need to recharge their bond with a credit card. Theoretically, a spammer could also recharge a large bond, but it is unlikely.
Wealthy individuals did not acquire wealth by risking money to send untargeted messages to large audiences. That would be like advertising women's shoes in Sports Illustrated.
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Is my bond refundable?
Yes. Each new Vanquish account includes a bond representing $.50 to $2.50 of sender liability depending on the product version and ISP agreement. The initial bond represents real money. In the event that recipients penalize your messages, cash is distributed to appropriate parties. If a user is unhappy with Vanquish within the first 30 days of service, the initial bond is refunded along with the entire product price or the product - less any penalties assessed by email recipients.
Typical users rarely need to recharge their bond. If you recharge your bond, the amount is refundable forever. A small fee may be deducted to cover the cost of processing your refund through a credit card or via PayPal.
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What is the bond liability?
In bonding messages, a sender agrees to a small potential liability for each message sent to protected recipients. The liability is conveyed as a penalty button embedded in the message. The sender loses bond value only if the recipient penalizes the message within 3 days of sending.
A penalty is different than rejection. An unbonded message sent to a protected recipient is rejected without delivery unless the sender is on the recipient's personal allowed list. A bonded message is never rejected or delayed. It is delivered to the recipient, because it is guaranteed by the presence of a valid penalty button.
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What is my total liability?
The penalty button represents a potential liability because the sender loses 5¢ of his future bonding capability if the recipient penalizes him within 3 days of sending the message. Therefore, the sender liability is equal to 5¢ times the number of messages sent during the past 3 days to protected recipients who are also strangers. A sender's liability is limited by their total available bond.
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Who gets the penalty money?
It may seem logical to distribute Penalties to individual recipients (after all, they are victims of the spammer, and the penalty guarantee is explicitly issued to them within each message). But this could create an incentive for unscrupulous users to invite and then penalize messages. The purpose of Vanquish is to stop spam and also to reverse the erosion of the internet infrastructure. Therefore, most of the penalty is distributed to the ISPs and mail providers whose resources have been drained by the very thieves who trespass and abuse their privileges.
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