Thursday, 23 June 2005

Microsoft Issues Anti-Spam Call to Action

Microsoft has added a new alert bar to its Hotmail service that notifies users when the sender of an incoming e-mail cannot be verified. The technology utilizes Microsoft's Sender ID Framework, which is designed to cut down on the number of spam messages and phishing attacks flooding customer inboxes. Sender ID is one of a number of new standards proposed to combat spammers and has been backed by large service providers such as America Online. The technology was initially met with concern over its proprietary nature, but Microsoft subsequently opened up Sender ID to ensure compatibility with Sender Policy Framework, a competing anti-spam technology.

Microsoft says over 1 million domains have already published SPF records, up from just 60,000 in October 2004. Sender ID also supports simple From address verification or what is called a PRA (Purported Responsible Address).