ISIPP News: IADB Email Sender Accreditation Reputation Program Announced by ISIPP
IADB SENDER ACCREDITATION PROGRAM ANNOUNCED BY INSTITUTE FOR SPAM AND INTERNET PUBLIC POLICY
New database helps ISPs, Spam Filters Make Email Acceptance Decisions
SAN FRANCISCO, CA - March 15, 2004 - The Institute for Spam and
Internet Public Policy (ISIPP) announced today the release and
availability of the ISIPP Accreditation Database (IADB).
Using the same technology as do its controversial blocklist cousins,
such as the MAPS RBL and SPEWS, which are used to reject spam, the
IADB is designed to help email receiving organizations such as ISPs
and spam filtering companies in making email acceptance, handling, and
delivery decisions, and to help legitimate senders of bulk and
commercial email to ensure that their email gets delivered, and not
erroneously blocked as "spam".
The IADB accomplishes this dual purpose by listing email senders in
the database, and providing factual information about the senders to
the ISPs and spam filters, including whether the sender has passed a
background and reference check by ISIPP, whether they are personally
known to ISIPP to be good Internet emailing citizens, and whether they
publish Internet domain authentication records such as for Sender
Policy Framework (SPF) or Microsoft's "Caller I.D. for Email", or
participate in sender authentication programs such as Habeas or
Ironport' Bonded Sender.
"What is unique about IADB, among other things, is that it is the
first DNS-queryable database which provides the kind of fact-based
data that it does," said Anne P. Mitchell, Esq., President and CEO of
the Institute. "We don't tell ISPs 'you should accept email from this
sender because we say so'. We tell ISPs "his organization has good
mailing practices, they are known to us, they publish SPF records,
participate in Bonded Sender, or whatever the case may be, and the
ISPs and other receivers make their email acceptance or rejection
decisions based on that data."
The IADB provides listee data in ways which are useful to both ISPs
and spam filters. ISPs often prefer to make an email processing
decision based on a cumulative score, accepting email from any IADB
listee which has a score above a certain number, indicating that they
adhere to many best practice standards. Spam filters often prefer to
have each piece of information available to them separately, as
individual data points. IADB accommodates both.
"Outblaze supports ISIPP's IADB database because it gives us factual
and reliable information about senders," said Suresh Ramasubramanian,
Security and Antispam Operations Manager for ISP Outblaze Limited.
"Information such as whether a sending site publishes SPF records and
whether it is personally known to ISIPP as a responsible sender that
maintains and furthers best current practices." Added
Ramasubramanian, "the IADB is a convenient tool that helps us make
decisions about accepting and processing email from senders who are
vouched for as responsible mailing list operators."
"We're pleased to see resources like IADB emerging, and SpamAssassin
is looking at incorporating an IADB lookup into our next release,"
said Craig Hughes, one of the chief architects of the open source
SpamAssassin project. "ISIPP has been very flexible and accommodating
in working with us to establish a standard interface mechanism between
accreditation databases like IADB and filters like SpamAssassin."
"IADB is also unique in that it is the first such database to
incorporate a sending site's SPF or Microsoft "Caller I.D. for Email"
data, and if other sender domain authentication schemes come online we
are prepared to incorporate them as well," added Mitchell. "his not
only provides an added data point for the ISPs and spam filters, but
it also means that those sites which publish authentication records
can have their domains listed in IADB, along with their IP addresses."
Sender authentication records are important because they keep spammers
from successfully forging a domain name in the "From" portino of the
email they send.
"Having the IADB provide information about whether a sender publishes
SPF records is an important new direction for DNS-based email delivery
information databases, and we're very pleased that ISIPP has chosen to
do this, and happy to work with them in providing unique IADB
accreditation codes for SPF publishers," said Meng Weng Wong, founder
of POBox.com and a chief proponent of SPF. "It is exactly this sort
of cross-industry pollination which is going to help make sure that
legitimate email gets delivered and that fraudulent email does not."
In addition to the support of ISPs and spam filtering companies, the
IADB is being embraced by email software and technology developers
such as Advenix, developer of the EmailTeaser enhanced graphical
subject line technology. "On its own, the EmailTeaser allows an email
marketer to complement the subject line of their email with a small
graphical icon next to the subject line, which, when voluntarily
moused-over by the recipient, displays a teaser graphic of the
sender's choosing without the need to open the email," explained
Justin Khoo, chief developer of the EmailTeaser. "We've incorporated
IADB data, and provide email marketers who are listed in IADB with a
customized EmailTeaser icon which tells the recipient "this email is
ok, it's rom someone listed in the IADB."
Email senders who are interested in being listed in IADB should see http://www.isipp.com/iadb.php
