Microsoft's Sender ID Check program, an email authentication framework developed to fight spam, domain spoofing, and phishing, allows domains to register their SPF records. Today, the company estimates that more than one million domains have published SPF records, and more than one billion emails are sent every day with SPF records.

This week, MSN Hotmail plans to take the Sender ID Check program one step further by activating the UI (user interface) warning to customers on mail whose email authentication the Sender ID Check can not verify. Mail that fails the Sender ID check will receive a UI warning and may be placed in the receiver’s junkmail folder or deleted based on various anti-spam and anti-phishing heuristics. Come November 2005, Microsoft plans to increase the weighting of “failed” checks on noncomplying email.

For more information on Sender ID framework and other approaches to email authentication, visit Email Authentication.org.

 

Wiley Rein LLP