Industry Collaboration

Eradicating Spam and Phishing Requires an Industry-wide Approach

Published: December 1, 2005 | Updated: June 15, 2006

Leading e-mail infrastructure and services providers share the same challenges with spam, phishing, and identity theft as users do. Any solution to the problem of spam and phishing must involve coordinated industry efforts on many levels throughout the Internet and e-mail ecosystem. At Microsoft, we are working with key stakeholders such as America Online, Amazon, Bell Canada, British Telecom, Cisco, Comcast, eBay, Sendmail, Symantec, and Yahoo! to help drive technical collaboration and to develop effective industry guidelines and best practices to address these problems.

Industry Working Groups, Organizations, and Alliances
At Microsoft, we work closely with various industry organizations and trade associations to share information and coordinate efforts toward common goals. Through supporting and serving in leadership roles with these organizations, we can jointly improve online trust and confidence.

Reputation Services
Reputation services play a critical role in e-mail authentication and identity verification. Microsoft works closely with several companies that provide such reputation services to improve the deliverability of legitimate e-mail and reduce false positives.

Microsoft Phishing Filter Data Providers
To provide an unparalleled level of protection from phishing exploits, Microsoft has agreements with several commercial data providers to dynamically provide information to Microsoft on thousands of confirmed phishing Web sites. Microsoft has integrated this data into the new Microsoft Phishing Filter technology, which is available for the MSN Search Toolbar and the preview betas of Internet Explorer 7 for Microsoft Windows Vista and Microsoft Windows XP SP2. Today this data is helping to improve online safety for millions of users worldwide.

Sender ID Support and Solutions
Many companies offer technical solutions that support the Sender ID Framework. These solutions can help you combat spam and phishing today.