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January 19, 2005

Microsoft: the axis of inertia on spam?

Salon has my new article, How Microsoft is losing the war on spam. It looks at whether the company can deliver on Bill Gates' prediction that junk email will be history in 2006. Excerpt:

According to many experts, Microsoft remains as much the root of the spam problem as the key to solving it.

Most junk e-mail today emanates from Windows computers that spammers have hijacked and turned into spam "zombies" using security holes in Microsoft's operating system. What's more, Microsoft is blamed for wrecking efforts this past summer to create e-mail authentication standards. The company also stands accused of trying to neuter state anti-spam laws. And Microsoft has yet to win a lawsuit against a major spammer.

As I report in the article, Microsoft says there's no silver bullet to solving the spam problem. But the folks I interviewed said Microsoft should stop worrying about what's good for its business, and concentrate instead on what's best for the Internet as a whole.

(Yes, I know. Salon's ads are extremely annoying. But they help pay the bills, and you can avoid them by becoming a premium member.)

Posted by brian at January 19, 2005 9:13 AM