Spiegel Online International would like to apologize to our subscribers for the massive delays encountered this week by our e-mail newsletter.

Many will have noted that the newsletter has been arriving hours late, and sometimes not at all. The problem lies with a massive anti-spam operation currently being undertaken by Yahoo. Spiegel Online, of course, is not in the business of sending out unsolicited e-mails. But the so-called "tar pits" Yahoo has set up to filter out spam have drastically slowed the delivery of our newsletter -- even to those subscribers who do not have a Yahoo e-mail address.

We are in contact with Yahoo in the hopes that they will exempt Spiegel Online newsletters from their spam filters. But it is unlikely we will be able to resume normal delivery until sometime next week.

In an effort to isolate the problem and to better serve our non-Yahoo readers, we have been forced to take the unfortunate action of temporarily ceasing delivery to those with Yahoo e-mail accounts for the next several days. We apologize for the inconvenience and we assure you that we appreciate SPIEGEL ONLINE readers with Yahoo Mail just as much as any other. We hope to resolve the problem as quickly as possible.