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WASHINGTON, D.C. -- A plan to authenticate commercial e-mail, reassuring customers that they're not getting spammed, is in the works from a pair of privacy firms.

The trust infrastructure program was unveiled by Web site privacy policy certifier Truste and privacy consultant firm Eprivacy Group at the Privacy and Data Protection Summit here this week. The event is sponsored by the International Association of Privacy Officers.

Called the Positiva Trusted Sender Program, the new certificate program is designed for companies that want to reassure customers who are concerned about receiving e-mail, says Vincent Schiavone, Eprivacy Group president. "It's a technology-based self-regulation program," he says.

Verifying Goodwill

Businesses that subscribe to the service, which will cost from $4000 to $14000 "per brand," will be certified as legitimate businesses that agree to follow antispam procedures. The business must prove it has a prior business relationship with the customer on its e-mail list, or that the customer asked to be added to the list.

The business then receives a hardware device through which it will route all bulk e-mail on its way to the Internet. The device adds the encrypted privacy seal to the outbound e-mail, and adds a link back to Truste's Web site, where the recipient can check the validity of the e-mail certificate.

Truste will take responsibility for certifying the companies that use the service. In addition to allowing e-mail recipients to validate the sender's certificate, the Truste site is where they can complain if the business fails to remove them from a mailing list upon request.

"We will guarantee that when someone wants to unsubscribe from a mailing list, the company follows through," says Fran Maier, Truste executive director. "A new catalog site couldn't get certified and use this service if they rent a list of addresses."

Early Supporters

The new service counts some high-profile spam fighters as supporters, including Ray Everret-Church, cofounder of the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email; SpamCon Foundation officer Ted Gavin; and privacy author and expert Simson Garfinkel.

Microsoft was the first company to endorse the new service, adopting the new certificate program for use with e-mail sent to customers of MSN and several of its most widespread software applications.

"It's not just the seal; it's the dispute resolution service behind it" that attracts Microsoft, says Diane McDade, MSN privacy product manager.

Both Eprivacy Group and Truste representatives agree their service won't slow the flood of unwanted spam from small operations that use deception and manipulative techniques to falsify originating addresses.

"It's hard to police the bad players," admits Eprivacy's Schiavone. But it's a start. And the pair say they've already had "several productive talks" with developers of e-mail applications, which could automate such authentication by building the Positiva features into e-mail programs.

At any rate, the collaboration partners hope to create a "higher level" of legitimacy for some commercial e-mail. If it is widely adopted, and especially if its features become part of popular e-mail programs, the authentication certificate approach could force illegitimate spammers into a more easily filtered-out subculture.

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