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IETF rejects sender ID

The Internet Engineering Task Force has rejected Microsoft's preferred anti-spam specification.

The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has rejected Microsoft's preferred anti-spam specification, Sender ID, due to a possible intellectual property rights conflict.

Members of the IETF's working group MARID (MTA Authorization Records in DNS) reached a rough consensus last month that Microsoft's Sender ID specification should not be made a mandatory part of the eventual standard.

The sticking point is that Microsoft's has stated that it has applied for patents which could affect Sender ID, but has failed to reveal any details. MARID co-chair Andrew Newton posted to the group: "The working group has at least rough consensus that the patent claims should not be ignored," saying that, since the patent applications were unavailable and members of the group were unable to determine exactly what the claims might be, MARID should not undertake work in this area. However, Newton added that the group would not rule out the possibility of work with Sender ID, should the status of Microsoft's patent claim or its associated licence change in the future.

Both the Debian operating system project and the Apache server project have also stated that they will not implement Sender ID, reasoning that its current licensing terms are incompatible with open-source licences.

23 September 2004

Tags: spam