Email Sender and Provider Coalition Issues Reputation Position Statement

Outlines Principles and Offers Industry Parameters for Reputation Providers; Differentiates Reputation from Spam Filtering and Authentication

CHICAGO and YORK, ME-April 18, 2006 -- Today, at the Email Authentication Summit II, the Email Sender and Provider Coalition (ESPC) released a reputation position statement that outlines guiding principles of email reputation and provides a framework for public and private reputation services. Independent, third party reputation service providers (RSPs) are an emerging segment of the market that collect performance data and assert positive reputations about email senders. This statement reinforces the principles of objectivity and openness, and suggests how RSPs should generally weigh different factors, such as complaint and unknown user rates, in determining sender reputations and facilitating the delivery of legitimate email.

"Authentication has seen great adoption over the past year by senders and receivers and we're happy to see that reputation service providers are ready to step in and provide objective scoring systems for commercial senders," said Trevor Hughes, executive director of the ESPC. "It is the ESPC's intent to act as a guide for reputation providers, senders and receivers as reputation plays an ever increasing role in email deliverability."

Reputation, authentication and spam filtering have all received a lot of attention in recent years, however confusion exists about where one solution stops and another begins. Spam filtering technologies, such as blacklists, focus solely on blocking unwanted mail and preventing spam. The fallout from use of the filters is that legitimate messages are wrongfully blocked, and the effectiveness of email as a channel for communication and commerce diminishes. In contrast, reputation services are about facilitating delivery of legitimate mail. A sender's reputation is established based on actual performance data and a positive reputation provides a vehicle for 'good senders' to ensure their email makes it to the inbox.

"While it's critically important to prevent abusive email practices, we need to move beyond prevention in ensuring the viability of email for legitimate communication and commerce," said Dave Lewis, VP, Alliances and Market Development, StrongMail Systems Inc. "We're looking to reputation service providers to actually facilitate the delivery of good mail - not just prevent spam on the perimeter."

In accordance with the groundwork laid out in the "Project Lumos" white paper released by the ESPC in 2003, the solution to curbing spam comes from a combination of authentication and reputation. Authentication establishes the identity of an email sender by verifying that messages are actually coming from the domain or IP that claims to be sending them. However, authentication does not monitor sending practices to determine if the sender is following best practices or sending unsolicited email. Reputation takes the next step as independent third party RSPs monitor a sender's performance and provide objective information to receivers. Receivers can then use the data according to their internal rules for accepting and placing email. Ultimately, messages from senders with the highest levels of performance make it to the inbox whereas those with less than desirable sending habits are filtered by ISPs.

"The ESPC has long espoused that senders should be held accountable for their email practices," said Ben Isaacson, Privacy and Compliance Leader, CheetahMail, An Experian Company. "These principles are a guide to help receivers prioritize that accountability based on objective observable behaviors rather than subjective criteria."

ESPC Defines Four Principles of Sender Reputation
Independent third party RSPs collect information including compliant rates, unknown user rates, infrastructure stability and unsubscribe integrity to establish a sender's reputation. The ESPC classifies this data by defining four principles of sender reputation including Recipient Feedback, Sender Identity, Bad Addresses and Bounce Management. Recipient Feedback, the cornerstone of any reputation system, involves direct feedback from the recipients of email messages allowing them to report improper mailing practices. Sender Identity encourages RSPs to use authentication to associate a reputation with a domain, instead of an IP address, ensuring the sending entity is fully responsible for all mailings coming from within their domain. The Bad Addresses principle encourages senders to keep up-to-date, accurate lists ensuring they don't inadvertently mail to non-existent email addresses. Finally, Bounce Management states that senders should promptly remove addresses that are returned as permanent errors by an ISP or other receiver.

To download the ESPC Reputation Position Statement: http://www.espcoalition.org/erps.php

Also at the Email Authentication Summit II, the ESPC released an Email Authentication Report and press release stating "Email Authentication Hits the Mainstream as the Largest Internet Service Providers Authenticate Messages." Please visit www.espcoalition.org for more information.