Microsoft to submit antispam standard

[Chris]

Microsoft on Wednesday said it plans to submit a proposal to make its antispam technology a standard, becoming the latest Internet giant to seek industry approval for the adoption of its technique.

The technology, called "Caller ID for E-mail," is an Internet Protocol-based method to ensure that the sender's return e-mail address is authentic. Many spammers have used a method called "spoofing," which makes their return addresses appear legitimate to the recipient's spam filters. Often, people open unwanted spam, thinking it originated from a contact, which could lead to the further dissemination of viruses and user annoyance.

Microsoft plans to file its proposal to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), an industry standards body, either this week or next.

"It's imminent," Microsoft spokesman Sean Sundwall said.

The company's expected submission comes soon after Yahoo submitted its own e-mail authentication proposal on Tuesday to the IETF. The technology, called DomainKeys, tries to achieve the same objective as Caller ID, but through a different system. DomainKeys matches digital signatures between the e-mail and the server to gain admittance into a person's in-box.

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