BitRelay provides e-mail services to clients using the qmail server program and POP3 or IMAP access protocols. This allows clients hosting domains at BitRelay to receive e-mail at their domain using any POP3- or IMAP-compatible mail client (Outlook, Netscape, Eudora, etc.). Information about how to configure e-mail accounts is provided on the Clients page.

As the internet continues to grow as a mass-marketing medium, it has become increasingly important to take measures to protect users from harrassing or annoying e-mail messages. Unsolicited mail, typically commercial in nature, is often sent in batches of hundreds or thousands of letters. This is commonly referred to as "spam" and has become a significant problem as e-mail grows in popularity.

BitRelay does not provide methods for preventing clients from receiving spam, although it does provide spam filtering. Each user is responsible for handling messages tagged as spam. For more information about mail filters and other ways to combat spam, please see www.spamcon.org and other sites.

All e-mail servers can perform work as relays, which means they receive special data via the internet (using a protocol known as SMTP) and pass it to the proper recipient as e-mail. A technique used by many "spammers" involves sending thousands of e-mail messages through mail servers which have not been properly configured. These are called open relays and essentially send e-mail from anywhere to anywhere. In addition to aiding an enterprise which is often in violation of local laws, this consumes valuable network bandwidth and server resources, thereby affecting legitimate clients and their business.

Because all internet service providers (ISP's) have specially-configured mail relays for their customers, BitRelay does not provide mail relaying for any of its clients. Instead, clients should use their ISP-- which they need in order to access their mail at BitRelay anyway-- to send e-mail messages. By disabling mail relaying, BitRelay can provide greater bandwidth and server resources to its clients.

BitRelay apologizes for any inconvenience this may cause, but feels the security and efficiency benefits gained by not supporting mail relaying far outweigh the risks or convenience of such support.