AOL Scratches Sender ID Plans

AOL has dropped plans to embrace Microsoft's Sender Policy Framework (SPF) - of which `Sender ID' is part of.

This comes in addition to the Apache and Debian open source groups saying Microsoft's anti-spam plan was inherently in conflict with their frameworks. Microsoft would make the license available free of cost - but would retain rights to the patents.

SPF / Sender ID don't really have any built-in spam filter technology - they just reliably identify the sender of the email. Emails without verifiable senders could be dropped - however this would cause massive loss of legitimate messages.

Spam blockers would need to use a separate database of known spammers would need to be developed in order for it to be useful. Even then - the advantages over existing anti-spam blacklists to block spam email is somewhat unclear.

To give Microsoft some credit - while Windows XP SP2 doesn't provide a functional Outlook Express spam filter - it does now by default not display linked images. This makes it much more difficult for spammers to tack if their messages were received.

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