Microsoft Corp. today announced that its Sender ID Framework specification for e-mail authentication is now available under the company's Open Specification Promise (OSP), an irrevocable promise to every individual in the world that they can make use of the covered Microsoft® technology easily and for free. This is another step forward in the company's commitment to delivering interoperability by design.
Microsoft is committed to working with the IT industry to help protect users and businesses from the blight of online threats. Sender ID, the leading e-mail authentication protocol, aims to help stop the spread of spam, phishing scams, malware and other online exploits in e-mail by helping address domain spoofing, a tactic used in over 95 percent of all exploits where the name in the "To:" line of the e-mail is forged.* Approved by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) as an experimental Request for Comment (RFC) this past April, Sender ID gives customers greater certainty about the origin of an e-mail message and enables legitimate senders to more clearly distinguish themselves from spammers and online criminals.
After nearly two years of worldwide deployment to more than 600 million users, Sender ID already enjoys broad industry support. The application of the OSP will promote further industry interoperability by making the e-mail authentication framework more clearly available to the entire Internet ecosystem, including customers, partners, Internet service providers, registrars and the developer community, no matter what model they use -- commercial, open source or academic.
"Great progress has already been made on e-mail authentication worldwide, with more than 5 million** domain holders adopting Sender ID as a best practice today to help protect brands and counter spam and e-mail exploits," said Brian Arbogast, corporate vice president of the Windows Live Platform Development Group at Microsoft. "There have been lingering questions from some members of the development community about the licensing terms from Microsoft and how those terms may affect their ability to implement Sender ID. By putting Sender ID under the Open Specification Promise, our goal is to put those questions to rest and advance interoperable efforts for online safety worldwide."
Comments