Random sender addresses

I'm getting really fed up with the practice that some companies have adopted, of setting a new sender address for every e-mail newsletter.

For example, IThound, an Incisive Media publication, sent something with the sender address

mail.ctjkgqetqgbvegquskn@incisive-media.msgfocus.com

This is presumably so that they can route any replies to the originator of the offer that the newsletter covers.

That's not a trusted address so the message is marked as [Spam] and placed in the Junk Mail folder. If I click 'Mark As Wanted' in the AVG toolbar, the message is moved back to the Inbox but no Outlook rules are applied to it. I have to file it manually. A new entry is added to the AVG whitelist, and any further messages from the same sender should be filed according to my Outlook rules settings. In all likelihood, there won't be any further messages with the same random sender address, so all that happens is that my whitelist is stuffed with rubbish like this.

Streetcards, one of my occasional suppliers, who have great products, change the domain name on their outgoing e-mails and the same thing happens.

I actually want to read some of the material that I'm sent. That's why I signed up in the first place. I don't want to unsubscribe, but I don't want to have to waste time either. Hang your heads in shame:

• Incisive Media
• Novatech
• Internet World
• Insurance Times
• Euromoney plc
• Streetcards

Goodbye Norton 360

I've used Norton Antivirus and related products exclusively for the PCs that I control for the last 10 years. Laptops arrived with Norton products pre-installed, and these did the job adequately.

Norton 360 was included with the Toshiba Tecra (Vista) laptop that I bought about 15 months ago. Though I didn't like it very much, I renewed the subscription before the 90 days' trial was complete. Now that 12 months' renewal has expired and guess what! All protection seems to have stopped - the product doesn't carry on checking for viruses, firewall, intrusion protection, e-mail scanning, virus and spyware scan. The whole lot seems to have been switched off (if I understand the messages correctly) now that the date has been reached. Other Norton products carry on protecting with the versions of the virus signatures up to the date of the renewal. This doesn't; it's abdicated completely.

Goodbye Norton 360. I won't accept such a business policy. It's AVG for me.

Dear Toshiba

It's really annoying to be sent a customer satisfaction survey that doesn't work - it gives a server error when I press submit. Not very professional.

And the incentive - to be entered in a draw for a 1GB flashdrive with the rule that entries must be received by 31 Jan 2007 - not very professional either. And it makes you look like cheapskates too. A 1GB drive must be worth about £4. I bet each completed response costs you 5 - 10 times that.

The URL for the survey (www.c-f-1.com) resolves to Communicator Corp. Is Communicator Corp responsible for your malformed website alert messages too? These come as a string of html but aren't interpreted properly (MIME type needed?). Not even the hyperlinks work - they have to be cut and pasted into a browser.

The good news is that the equipment is much better than the marketing and customer satisfaction malarkey would suggest.