Will Microsoft charge for Sender ID? Will their aggressive stance on their patent request force the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) to look elsewhere for a sender authentication standard?
There is no question that Microsoft's position has slowed the acceptance of Sender ID at major ISP's and in the open source community. Apache already rejected it, and AOL says that they will stick with their Sender Policy Framework (SPF) when authenticating inboud emails to their users. However, here is why I think that Sender ID will have legs -- even AOL is publishing Sender ID records for their outbound email. Why?! Because the largest free email service in the world (Hotmail) will require them by 10/1.
Is Sender ID irrelevant? NO. 120 million Hotmail users say so...
Don't want your message marked at the top with a Hotmail warning saying "could not be authenticated by Sender ID?" You'll need to post your records by 10/1 to meet Microsoft's goal implementation date.
Until next time. Cheers!
Chip