Yahoo & Cisco Unite to Fight Spam

Yahoo and Cisco Systems will combine their anti-spam technologies to create a new e-mail authentication system which aims to fight spam, e-mail forgery and phishing scams. The system attaches a digital signature to outgoing e-mail, allowing recipients to verify that the message comes from its claimed source.

DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) incorporates Yahoo’s DomainKeys authentication technology and Cisco’s Internet Identified Mail, and will be offered to the industry on a royalty free basis.

Companies, including Microsoft, have proposed other antispam technologies. Eventually, such a system is expected to become part of the Internet e-mail standard.

Business Week - Both Yahoo and Google’s Gmail have deployed Domainkeys. Yahoo’s e-mail service is receiving more than 350 million messages signed by Domainkeys each day, said Miles Libbey, anti-spam product manager for Yahoo Mail.

CNet News - AOL and Microsoft have said they’re looking at DomainKeys, but the providers are pushing their own e-mail authentication technologies. AOL’s SPF and Microsoft’s Sender ID check an e-mail’s identity through its Internet Protocol address, and can be used alongside DomainKeys.