Microsoft Delivers New Tools to Help Reduce Spam

Microsoft yesterday announced new toosl to help reduce spam. First, there's the MSN Postmaster web site, http://postmaster.msn.com/ which was "developed to give bulk e-mailers/senders, ISPs, e-mail service providers (ESPs), postmasters, and domain administrators a location to learn more about issues and solutions related to sending communications to MSN Hotmail consumers."

The second feature is known as Smart Network Data Services, (SNDS). SNDS generates reports on the mail traffic that is sent to MSN Hotmail and Hotmail customers. This can help an ISP, for example, to deteming the volume of e-mail being sent from its IP space to MSN Hotmail, how that e-mail is impacted by MSN Hotmail spam filtering, and what percentage of its e-mail has been marked as spam by MSN Hotmail and MSN customers. This can help the ISP to take appropriate action in cases of zombies, or spammers using their network to send bulk spam.