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Microsoft promises not to sue over Sender ID

Joris Evers CNET News

Published: 24 Oct 2006 09:45 BST

Microsoft's Sender ID email authentication technology can now be used without fear of the software giant's intellectual property lawyers.

The company said on Monday it is making the "Sender ID Framework" available under its Open Specification Promise programme. That means Microsoft will not sue anyone who creates products or services based on the email technology.

The move is part of an effort to promote interoperability among commercial and open source software products, and among Internet access providers that utilise email authentication, Microsoft said in a statement.

"Users will be able to implement, commercialise and modify Microsoft's patented email authentication technology without having to sign a licensing agreement," it said.

Sender ID is a caller ID-like system for email meant to help fight spam and related cyberscams such as phishing. Microsoft has been pushing the technology for a couple of years as a partial solution to junk email. Intellectual property issues around the technology have flared up in the past as a roadblock to adoption.

Microsoft announced the OSP in September, when it said 38 Web services specifications would be available under the promise. Earlier this month, it was expanded to include the Virtual Hard Disk Image Format specification.

Nearly two years after Sender ID's launch, 36 percent of all legitimate email sent worldwide uses the technology, via about 5 million domains, according to Microsoft data.