Microsoft Deploys IronPort's 'Bonded Sender' Program
- by Ross Fadner , May 5, 2004
Microsoft has been testing the new "Bonded Sender" program for the past five months, and the initial results have been promising enough that the Redmond, Wash.-based company will now deploy the program on a permanent basis.
The "Bonded Sender" program guarantees email marketers near 100 percent delivery of messages within the Microsoft network in exchange for adherence to a set of conditions and a posted cash bond. Depending on commercial marketers' volume, per month bonds range from $500 to $4,000. Deductions from these bonds are made if senders break certain rules, or if Microsoft receives a significant number of complaints from MSN and Hotmail customers about a given sender.
Rich Dandliker, product manager for "Bonded Sender," IronPort Systems, says that the price of the bonded program will not deter legitimate marketers from seeking certification. "We priced it at a pretty nominal level," Dandliker says, noting that "a huge payoff for legitimate marketers" in the form of improved deliverability rates is a significant return in and of itself. "Because of the bond aspect," he says, "it's far too expensive for spammers," who often have little or no overhead to draw from.
Messages from program participants are ensured higher delivery rates because their messages automatically bypass Microsoft spam filters--a move that could in turn virtually eliminate the problem of false positives, a major headache for email marketers. False positives are improperly blocked marketing messages or other emails that never reach their intended destinations.
"Because spam is our email customers' number one complaint today, our technology must include a process that works in tandem with our efforts to differentiate good email from junk email," Ryan Hamlin, general manager of Microsoft's anti-spam technology and strategy group, said in a statement.
Hamlin adds that as more companies place their names on the list, Microsoft in turn will be able to "crank down on the filters," which he says will lead to a reduction in the amount of spam for consumers. In fact, if the idea of certifying senders through a bonded program takes off, online services could effectively block all bulk messages sent from uncertified addresses.
The root of today's email problems "stems from the anonymity of today's email protocol SMTP," according to comments by IronPort in a press release on the deal with Microsoft. Spammers can easily forge legitimate-seeming email addresses, or steal someone else's domain name in order to send undetected spam. With the Bonded Sender Program, IronPort tracks the Internet Protocol (IP) addresses of program participants; IP addresses are extremely difficult to forge.
Certification, neutral third-party disputing support, and general oversight will be provided by online privacy and certification organization TRUSTe. To qualify for the program, marketers must agree to conditions that exceed those set forth by the federal CanSpam law, and demonstrate a history of effective email ending practices.
IronPort's Dandliker says that the company is in discussions with America Online and Yahoo! for a deal that is similar to the Microsoft one. "They're looking for a track record of success," he says. "With Hotmail's proven success, it brings us that much closer to industry adoption."
"I'm pleased to see that we are moving past the debate stage and onto adoption," says Michael Mayor, president of NetCreations, a digital marketing solutions provider and industry standards advocate. "If a major ISP (Internet Service Provider) says the requirements are high enough, they are," he deadpans.
