Network World
Newsletter: Michael Osterman on Messaging
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Start-up
Vanquish makes spammers pay
By
Michael Osterman
A
new Boston-area company has developed an interesting approach to combating spam
- making spammers pay to send it.
Vanquish’s software is still in limited release to several
ISPs that are beta-testing the product, but the company plans to ship the first
release in March or April.
Vanquish’s concept is very simple. Instead of using
filters to determine what constitutes spam, the Vanquish system requires e-mail
senders to include a penalty button in each message they send to a recipient
whose e-mail system or e-mail provider is protected by Vanquish.
If
a message is spam, the recipient clicks on The Penalty Button and the sender’s
bond is debited five cents if the recipient clicks the button within three days
of sending the e-mail (every Vanquish account includes a sender bond of up to
$2.50 to cover the first 50 or so rejected messages, so that senders of
legitimate messages will rarely, if ever, have to put their own money into the
bond).
Senders
that do not include a penalty button in their e-mail will receive an automatic
message back from a Vanquish-protected recipient asking them to solve a
challenge that consists of entering two graphics-based words from a Web site to
which the sender is directed. Upon successful completion of the challenge, the
original e-mail is delivered and the user is placed on the recipient’s whitelist. If the sender does not include a penalty button
or respond to the challenge in a timely manner, the e-mail will not be
delivered.
An
interesting twist on Vanquish’s bonding of e-mail
senders is they will pay ISPs who have to transport spam. Although Vanquish has
not yet determined how much ISPs will receive from the bonds forfeited by
spammers, recipients’ ISPs will receive the largest single share of the
proceeds, followed by senders’ ISPs who are also Vanquish partners. Vanquish
will retain part of the proceeds to cover their costs of managing these funds.
Vanquish
is priced at $29.95 as a retail product; ISP partners pay 75 cents to $1 or
less per month per user account, and ISPs that pay monthly are charged a $2 fee
to cover the cost of the software and configuration.
The
Vanquish approach is intriguing for a couple of reasons. First, since it uses
only recipients’ judgment to determine what constitutes spam, it does not rely
on any sort of filtering technology, so there is little for e-mail
administrators to manage and there are no false positives. Second, while
Vanquish does not prevent spammers from sending their messages, the messages
simply won’t be delivered if a sufficient bond is unavailable or if the
challenge cannot be met (the latter being a practical impossibility for
spammers).
Of
course, the downside for any program of this type is that it needs a critical
mass of users to be truly effective - for example, if only 10% of all e-mail
users adopt this system, it will have little impact on spammers. Still, even in
the absence of a critical mass of users at this point, Vanquish is definitely
worth a look.
Related Editorial Links
Spammers
can’t spell ‘cat’ Network
World,
www.nwfusion.com/columnists/2002/0812netbuzz.html
Network
Associates bags antispam firm Deersoft Network World,
www.nwfusion.com/news/2003/0113deerkill.html
Microsoft
unwraps new Exchange server Network
World,
www.nwfusion.com/news/2003/0113msoft.html
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To
contact: Michael Osterman
Michael
D. Osterman is the principal of Osterman
Research <http://www.ostermanresearch.com/>,
a market research firm that helps organizations understand the markets for
messaging, directory and related products and services. He can be reached by
clicking here <mailto:michael@ostermanresearch.com>.
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Copyright Network World, Inc., 2003