Frequently Asked Questions

Pidmail™ is anti-spam software. It is 100% effective.

SPAM is a non-requested email message sent to you by a third party on behalf of company with the hope of selling you something (usually something you do want). These messages usually are sent in bulk to a huge number of people. They are very annoying.

Yes, absolutely.

Pidmail™ is a plugin of Outlook Express. It add SPAM filtering features on top of Outlook's already existing features.

Pidmail™ is the only software currently on the market that uses the Pidkey™ technology.

Pidkey means: Personnal IDentifier Key.

The pidkey technology uses the concept of keys that you give to your contacts to authorize them (and only them) to send you messages. Contacts that are already in your address book are considered to be legitimate contacts. Any other sender that does not have your pidkey cannot send you messages.
See an anime version of PidKey anti spam technology

Immediately after installation of pidmail is complete

All contacts already in your address book will be able to send you messages as usual. Every other message coming from other origins will be analysed by Pidmail.

The other technologies try to guess whether a message is spam or not.

Spammers make money on their ability to send large volume of unsolicited messages, without having to identify themselves. Further, spammers usually manage to bypass current tools by adapting their attacks to the newest anti-spam software. Unfortunately, users get caught in the middle of this cat and mouse game.

There is no guessing with Pidmail: All senders must identify themselves and in order to send messages, they must either:

• Have your email address and Pidkey code, or
• Be already in your address book, or
• Have a valid identity

By forcing spammers to identify themselves, Pidkey attacks spammers business model directly. This need for identification, would force spammers to customize their attacks one by one, for each and every one of the million of spam they send daily. By preventing spammers to do what they do automatically, and so cheaply, we are making the cost of spamming very high. And we believe a higher cost to them is an excellent deterent.

And this is precisely where the pidkey™ technology excels. It gives millions of customized protection, all unique. This creates a situation akin to a game of a cat chasing millions of mouse, but not catching any.

You can very easily and quickly change it, as many times as you like.

No. From the moment senders have been positively identified, their names are added to your address book. Once in the address book, they do not have to be identified again.

Yes. You can change your Pidkey™ code at any time. This change will not affect contacts already in your address book. Contacts in your address book receive your new PidKey, updated, automatically.

An identification message is send to verify the sender before removing his/her message from the quarantine folder.

It's simply a message containing a validation code that must be returned by the sender.

For visual example to reply to an identification message click here.

No. A message can be tranfered from the quarantine folder to the SPAM folder for two (2) reasons:

• The message IS spam.
• The sender has not been positively identified within the allocated time.

In the second case, pidmail automatically sends a reminder to the sender, giving him/her another opportunity to identify him/herself.

Once a sender has been positively identified, pidmail asks you to confirm and the sender's name and address are added to your address book. The sender can now send you message without having to identify him/herself every time.

Yes. Simply add the contact's address directly to you address book.