StubHub had a problem. Because of spam blockers at Internet service providers, a lot of e-mails sent to customers weren't getting through. 

So the San Francisco online ticket seller started using a service from e-mail company Goodmail Systems that basically certifies e-mail. 

“We saw an increase in open rates, an increase in ticket sales, postings, everything,” said Albert Lee, the e-mail production manager at StubHub. 

The open rate, or the unique users that opened an e-mail from StubHub, increased 26%, while ticket sales rose 33% and orders increased 16%. “People who registered to receive e-mail finally got it,” Lee said. 

Goodmail Systems, out of Mountain View, Calif., offers companies and government agencies a certified way to deliver e-mail to consumers. 

E-mail certified by Goodmail is guaranteed to be authentic and will display a blue ribbon in the e-mail to let consumers know it’s certified. Goodmail has relationships with AOL, Yahoo (YHOO), Comcast (CMCSA), AT&T (T), Verizon Communications (VZ), Cox Communications and Time Warner (TWX), all of which let any message from Goodmail through their firewalls. Senders of the e-mail pay Goodmail a fee to use the service, which is free to consumers. 

“Spammers have gotten pretty good at spoofing," said Peter Horan, chief executive of Goodmail.. "You can’t tell if it's spam or the real thing. We’ve dramatically raised the bar because this service is way behind the firewall behind the ISP.”

While Horan isn’t saying it's completely un-hackable, Goodmail’s CertifiedEmail hasn’t yet to be hacked. “We send 2 billion messages a month,” said Horan, noting that the Federal Reserve and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are among its customers. 

According to Horan, because of the proliferation of spam and phishing e-mails, 5% to 30% of all opted-in e-mail doesn’t get delivered even when it’s a well known brand. 

“Spammers have gotten pretty good at spoofing,” said Peter Horan, chief executive of Goodmail. "You can’t tell if it's spam or the real thing. We’ve dramatically raised the bar because this service is way behind the firewall behind the ISP.”

(Phishing is a factious e-mail that is masquerading as an official e-mail to attempt to get sensitive data.) And ISPs aren’t the only cautious ones. Horan said a recent study by the company found that 55% of people won’t open e-mail from any bank even their own while 80% are convinced they have been the target of a phishing scheme. 

“With CertifiedEmail the receiver knows the message from Citibank is really from Citibank,” said Horan. “The sender knows the message gets through to their customers.” 

Spamming, phishing and other e-mail scams are a growing problem as the use of the Internet and e-mail grows. Internet fraudsters take advantage of any situation to try and obtain sensitive personal information. 

In May, the FBI warned of a spam e-mail that claimed to be from the Internal Revenue Service, but was really an attempt to steal consumer information. The e-mail focused on the federal stimulus checks, urging consumers to click on a link to provide banking information to get their checks sooner. Scammers typically imitate banks and financial institutions’ official e-mail to try and get personal information. 

While Goodmail is approaching the problem from the corporate level, start-up Boxbe is tackling it from the consumer level. 

Taking a page from social networks like MySpace or Facebook, San Francisco-based Boxbe lets consumers receive e-mail from only pre-approved senders that are in their network. The free service, which works with Yahoo and Microsoft’s (MSFT) Outlook, lets users create a list of approved people who can send e-mail, similar to how instant messaging and social networking works. 

When a consumer signs up at Boxbe.com, the company deploys technology that scans the existing e-mail folders and address book to create a guest list of all the people who are e-mailed recently or frequently. The guest list automatically updates to include new people who send e-mail. 

Boxbe rates incoming messages from one to 10 and color codes the messages. The lower the number, the better the message is. Green means the message is likely good, yellow means there should be some caution taken when opening the e-mail, and red means signals danger.  A sender who isn’t who he or she claims to be would get a high score and a red mark. Boxbe uses technology to authenticate that a message is from the actual sender. 

“What we are trying to do is build an existing system," said Corbett Barr, co-founder and chief operating officer of Boxbe.. "Most people don’t want to change their e-mail. They'd rather improve how it works.”  While Boxbe only works with Yahoo and Outlook, Barr said the company is planning to support Google’s (GOOG) Gmail and AOL’s e-mail. 

“We help you to get e-mail you want from people you trust and make it easier to deal with the rest,” he said.