Last week hundreds of you didn't get your InfoAve newsletter - here's why:

Last week hundreds of you didn't receive your newsletter because we wrote an article about the so-called "worst virus infection in history" and we didn't alter the name of the virus which was "Conficker" (without the dashes). It proves once again why allowing your ISP to meddle with your personal email is such a bad idea - and why it amounts to little more than censorship. ISPs everywhere were filtering email that contained that word as if that would protect their readers from the virus of that name. Do they really think someone trying to infect home computers would send an email actually containing that word?

Hundreds of you didn't get last week's newsletter because your ISP censored your newsletter -  and deleted it. Why? Because we wrote an article to help you learn the truth about this latest virus scare which was, at that time, traveling at light speed around the 'Net . Many ISPs, thinking they were protecting their subscribers, filtered, censored and deleted any email which containing the word "Con/fick/er" (without the slashes). What they actually did was prevent you from getting the InfoAve newsletter you paid for; keep you from learning the real truth about the virus scare; and proved, once again, why ISP interfering with your private email in anyway, is a really bad idea.

To make matters worse for you, many ISPs were caught lying to their customers. Some of you wrote to your ISPs asking if they were blocking or filtering your email. Some ISPs denied they ever filtered or censored any customer's email. When we showed these subscribers proof that their ISPs were blocking and deleting our newsletter, these particular ISPs were caught in a lie. So, even if your ISP tells you they don't filter or censor your email you might want to take their denial with a grain of salt.

Our article was written to help you understand that the threat presented by the Conficker virus was overblown and more of a concern for network servers and administrators than it ever was for home users. But you would have never known that by the way it was being presented in other Windows newsletters, on Web blogs, tech sites and on computer magazines' Web sites.

Don't allow your ISP to censor, filter, block or interfere with your email in any way. If you do, then you can be certain of one thing: You'll never be certain you're getting all of your email.  If your ISP does interfere with, censor, or filter your email, and you don't want to switch ISPs, at least get a free Gmail account. You can set it up in your email program so it works just like the account you have with your ISP. Gmail never deletes any email without giving you a chance to look at it first. In fact you'll have 30 days to review the mail in your spam folder before it is deleted.

If you have a Gmail account (or Hotmail, Yahoo, or other Web-based mail account) never assume the email which has been put in your spam or bulk folder is all unwanted email. Most Web-based email accounts are trainable. That is, you decide what is good mail and what is bad mail. If you find a good email in your spam folder, highlight it and click the "Not spam" button. Then, any email which arrives from that sender in the future will always go in your inbox instead of your spam folder.

We recommend a Gmail account because you can access it with Outlook Express, Windows Mail, Outlook or most other mail programs without paying extra. You can send and receive using your Gmail account, right from your email program, just as you do with the accounts your ISP gives you - and you'll be in control of your own email instead of allowing a bunch of strangers to control what you receive and what you do not receive. No one knows your own email like you do. ISPs should get out of the censorship business and stick to doing what they're supposed to do - provide you with reliable Internet access.

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