Microsoft Corp., author of the Caller ID for E-mail proposal, and Meng Wong, co-founder and CTO of Pobox.com and author of the Sender Policy Framework (SPF), have announced today that they have agreed to converge the two proposals into one specification designed to help eliminate domain spoofing and provide greater protection against phishing schemes. By providing a unified specification, Microsoft and Wong hope to simplify industry adoption of effective e-mail authentication technology, thereby helping to more swiftly provide greater spam protection to e mail users worldwide.

"Spoofing," or sending e-mail purporting to be from someone it’s not, is an increasingly common and relatively simple way for spammers to try to trick filters. It can also pose a security risk when used to deliver e-mail viruses or phisher scams, which attempt to trick users into divulging personal information such as credit card numbers or account passwords by pretending to be from a legitimate source, such as a user’s bank. Caller ID and SPF aim to prevent spoofing by confirming what domain a message came from and thereby increase the effectiveness of spam filters.