AOL joins industry antispam, antivirus group

01.11.2004
Von Todd R.

Internet service provider America Online Inc. Monday said it has joined the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG), which was formed last December by a group of communications and technology companies to fight spam, viruses and other online attacks and nuisances.

"America Online is committed to improving our customers" messaging experience," Carl Hutzler, director of antispam operations at AOL, said in a statement. "To do so, we must cooperate to find common solutions for eliminating spam and other unwanted communications and security threats."

The San Francisco-based MAAWG is an independent nonprofit coalition of worldwide carriers and technology providers that hope to fight spam and viruses by collaborating, improving technology defenses and offering an industry voice on public antispam and antivirus policy.

Other members of the group include Bell Canada, BellSouth Corp., Charter Communications, Cloudmark Inc., Cox Communications Inc., EarthLink Inc., Goodmail Systems Inc., Internet Initiative Japan Inc., Openwave Systems Inc., TDS Telecom, TDS Metrocom and Verizon Communications Inc.

"We welcome America Online to the MAAWG and look forward to working with them to help define a set of best current practices across service providers to improve deliverability," Richard Wong, MAAWG"s chairman and Openwave"s general manager, said in a statement.

AOL, along with other Internet companies, has been taking on spam, fraud, forgery, viruses and other malicious attacks on several fronts. Last week, AOL, a unit of Time Warner Inc., filed a lawsuit in federal court in Alexandria, Va., targeting "spim," or unsolicited messages sent to users of its instant messaging service.

The MAAWG is holding its first general membership meeting today through Wednesday in Atlanta.