NEW YORK — June 7, 2005 — Recognizing the need for businesses to authenticate e-mail to help protect consumers, organizers of Email Authentication Implementation Summit 2005 today announced the preliminary agenda, a confirmed-speaker list and more than three dozen underwriters for the upcoming conference to be held at the Marriott Marquis in New York City on July 12. The goal of the summit is to share lessons learned and prescriptive advice to help all Internet domain holders implement e-mail authentication technologies today to increase protection for consumers in time for the upcoming holiday season.
Attendees will learn from leading experts in safety and online security including Cisco, Microsoft, Sendmail, Symantec and Yahoo! as they share best practices from working with leading e-commerce sites and financial institutions. In addition, marketing and brand executives will learn from the DMA, ESPC, Bigfoot Interactive and others on how domain holders can join in the fight against spam and phishing. Information about the full agenda, speaker list and registration can be found at http://www.emailauthentication.org/summit2005.
“E-mail authentication is crucial. We need to start implementing and teaching businesses how to deploy today. When you add reputation to the validation of the known identity of senders, we move toward better protecting users and businesses from deceptive e-mail exploits including spam and phishing,” said Dave Jevans, chair of the Anti-Phishing Working Group.
The Email Authentication Implementation Summit has attracted additional support from industry underwriters including the Association for Competitive Technology (ACT), CNET Networks Inc., Go Daddy Software Inc., OmnTi Inc., MarkMonitor, Message Level, SKYLIST Inc. and VeriSign Inc. This industry-defining summit will provide detailed technical information to help counter spam, phishing and e-mail fraud through the implementation of e-mail authentication solutions. Following on the edict from the Email Service Provider Coalition (ESPC) requiring members to publish Sender Policy Framework (SPF) records and the Direct Marketing Association’s ongoing call to action on authentication, the sending community clearly recognizes the value and importance of authenticated e-mail.
“E-mail authentication is an important building block in creating a more trusted e-mail infrastructure,” said Ken Schneider, chief architect for Network and Gateway Security Solutions at Symantec Corp. “End users want spam blocked and legitimate messages delivered quickly; reputation services that leverage e-mail authentication can more efficiently separate good from dangerous or unwanted messages.”
“We can no longer sit on the sidelines while consumers are having to fend for themselves. With forged e-mail, phishing and spyware on the rise, now is the time to take action; e-mail authentication needs to be mandatory,” said J. Trevor Hughes, executive director of ESPC.
“The level of support for the Email Authentication Implementation Summit demonstrates the industry’s commitment to protecting consumers and the viability of e-mail as a critical communications and commerce tool,” said Craig Spiezle, director of the Technology Care and Safety Group at Microsoft. “It is our responsibility as an industry to move e-mail authentication forward — anything short of this is unacceptable and only plays into the hands of the spammers.”
Event organizers expect more than 300 information technology (IT) professionals, business leaders and e-commerce executives to attend the summit at the Marriott Marquis, 1535 Broadway, New York. In addition to the aforementioned underwriters, the summit has attracted broad industry support from more than three dozen companies and groups: the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG), Barracuda Networks Inc., Bigfoot Interactive Inc., CipherTrust Inc., Cisco Systems Inc., Cloudmark Inc., Digital Impact Inc., the Direct Marketing Association (The DMA), DoubleClick Inc., the ESPC, Goodmail Systems Inc., Habeas Inc., Harte-Hanks Inc., Internet Identity, IronPort Systems Inc., MailFrontier Inc., Microsoft, The Open Group, Piper Software, Port25 Solutions Inc., Quris Inc., Release 1.0, Sendmail Inc., Return Path Inc., StrongMail Systems Inc., Symantec Corp., TRUSTe, Tumbleweed Communications Corp., and Yahoo! Inc.
About The Email Authentication Implementation Summit 2005
The Email Authentication Implementation Summit 2005 is the product of several industry-leading organizations coming together to implement self-regulatory standards to assist in furthering the exploration of solutions to stem the tides of spam and other e-mail-related security threats. The event was conceptualized by the steering committee: Bigfoot Interactive, the Direct Marketing Association, the Email Service Provider Coalition, Microsoft, Symantec and Sendmail. More information may be found at http://emailauthentication.org.
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