Microsoft Corp. on Monday said it had revised its proposal to weed out "spam" e-mail to win over skeptical Internet engineers who have been reluctant to adopt technology owned by the dominant software company. Microsoft officials said they have revised their SenderID protocol to work better with an existing standard and have narrowed their patent application to make sure it does not cover other proposals. The changes have won over at least one important player. America Online Inc., a division of Time Warner In., said it would now begin testing the protocol again after abandoning it one month ago.
Spammers often appropriate the e-mail addresses of others to slip through content filters, a tactic known as "spoofing." Microsoft's Sender ID is one of several proposals that would allow America Online and other Internet providers to check that a message from joe@example.com actually comes from example.com's server computers. Messages that do not match up could be safely rejected as spam. The technology would be invisible to everyday users. Microsoft in May combined its Sender ID proposal with another developed by entrepreneur Meng Wong and submitted them to the standards-setting Internet Engineering Task Force for approval.
News source: Reuters
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