Bill Gates Outlines Technology Vision to Help Stop Spam

In his keynote address at the RSA Conference 2004 in February 2004, Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates announced a detailed vision and proposals on how technology can be used to help put an end to spam, including outlining the company's Coordinated Spam Reduction Initiative (CSRI) and technical specifications for the establishment of Caller ID for E-Mail.

"Spam is our e-mail customers' No. 1 complaint today, and Microsoft is innovating on many different fronts to eradicate it," Gates said.

"We believe that Caller ID for E-Mail and the Coordinated Spam Reduction Initiative will help change the economic model for sending spam and put spammers out of business.

"To be more effective in the fight against junk e-mail, filters need additional information that is not available in e-mail messages today.

Microsoft believes some relatively simple but systemwide changes to the e-mail infrastructure are needed to provide greater certainty about the origin of an e-mail message and to enable legitimate senders to more clearly distinguish themselves from spammers.

CSRI is Microsoft's long-range industry plan for dramatically reducing spam through technology. It is based on three proposals to better enable effective filtering:

-- Establish a verifiable identity in e-mail through a caller-ID approach

-- Enable high-volume e-mail senders to demonstrate their compliance with reasonable e-mail policies

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