Microsoft email 'caller ID' questioned

Internet engineers working on a standard for identifying the source of email messages voted down a proposal by Microsoft to include some of that company's intellectual property in the specification.

On Saturday, a co-chair of the technical working group responsible for developing a standard for authenticating the origin of email messages summarised the results of a vote by the group members.

The group - part of the Internet Engineering Task Force and more formerly known as the MTA Authorization Records in DNS, or MARID, working group - decided that Microsoft's insistence on keeping secret a possible patent application on its proposed technology was unacceptable.

"The working group has at least [reached a] rough consensus that the patent claims should not be ignored," Andrew Newton, one of two co-chairs of the working group, wrote in an email to the group's discussion forum. "It is the opinion of the co-chairs that MARID should not undertake work on alternate algorithms reasonably thought to be covered by the patent application."

The ruling comes about three weeks after the two chairs of the working group, Marshall Rose and Andrew Newton, called for a virtual show of hands from engineers over whether they would deploy a hybrid technical specification that used Microsoft's technology. Open source software groups, including those that manage the development of the Apache web server and the Debian distribution of Linux, took umbrage with Microsoft's lack of clarity on issues of the company's intellectual property claims on the combined proposal, known as Sender ID.

Microsoft spokesman Sean Sundwall said the company would continue with its plans to develop its own proposal, Caller ID for E-mail. In August, Microsoft had feted more than 80 email service providers in Redmond, Washington, as part of the E-mail Service Provider Consortium. Between the company's participation in that group and the Anti-Spam Technical Alliance, Microsoft has done a good job of selling major internet infrastructure companies on the benefits of its proposal.

Sundwall would not say whether the IETF's censure would hinder the company's quest to get its Caller ID proposal accepted as a de facto internet standard. But he did note that many participants stayed out of the vote on Microsoft's involvement.

"If you look at the number of contributors that [voted], it is very small," he said.

Sender ID would create a system to positively identify whether the source address of an email message is the actual source of the message. The proposal is based on a previous scheme, known as the Sender Policy Framework, or SPF, which had been suggested by Meng Wong, the founder of email service provider Pobox.com. Microsoft later proposed its own way of authenticating the source of email, called Caller ID for E-mail, and a hybrid system was created.

The use of Microsoft's technology in the combined specification would mean the company could specify a licence that potential users have to agree to before using the code. Microsoft has instead provided a licence that appears to be voluntary, according to the analysis of some users of Sender ID. Microsoft has not provided guidance on the issue.

The ruling appears to allow for negotiation, if Microsoft considers removing licensing restrictions.

"We do feel that future changes regarding the patent claim or its associated licence could significantly change the consensus of the working group and at such a time it would be appropriate to consider new work of this type," the co-chairs said in the email message.

Robert Lemos writes for CNET News.com.