The company said it developed CleanMail in response to the growing need for an effective, yet non-intrusive spam and virus filter.

"With unsolicited commercial email cluttering inboxes and viruses bringing down entire networks, businesses and consumers need to protect themselves from attacks now more than ever," said John Lee, director of marketing for Hostway. "Hostway wholeheartedly supports legislative efforts to control spam and protect Internet users. Anti-spam laws are an important and appropriate way of addressing this issue. To augment the legislative approaches, Hostway is playing an active role in offering a technology-based solution."

According to Hostway, CleanMail classifies and filters spam before it reaches the intended recipient and scans all email messages against frequently updated virus definitions, deleting those that are infected.

"The fight against spam and viruses is serious," said Lee. "Hostway has created aggressive technology to help our customers deal with this problem without risking lost messages. We can't guarantee that 100 percent of all spam will be identified, but our new CleanMail offering will definitely help protect our customers."

Hostway said it is offering the service as a standard feature with all Web hosting and e-commerce hosting plans purchased by new customers.