AOL, Earthlink, and Google have all previously signed on with SPF, and Microsoft's support means that adoption should move forward. The question now is what effect the SPF + Microsoft protocol will have on Yahoo's DomainKeys technology, which works differently. DomainKeys has been submitted to the Internet Engineering Task Force to be ratified as an open standard, and will be supported by Sendmail (which will also support SPF). At least all of the parties are saying all the right things:
Wong said he was working with Yahoo to figure out how to make SPF and DomainKeys cooperate with and complement each other. "DomainKeys is the long-term approach; SPF is the short-term approach," Wong said. "If all goes well, we will meet in the middle and squash spammers like a bug."
Here's hoping for a fruitful meeting followed by a lot of squashing.
