Overview

The goal of IBM's antispam research is to stop spam, both for our customers and for the internet at large. IBM recognizes that unwanted communication, particularly unsolicited commercial communication, is the bane of the Internet age. The same technology that brings the world together, enhances productivity, and makes life better in so many ways also threatens to overwhelm us with unwanted and offensive messages.

Spam is an exceedingly complicated problem. While dozens of technologies have the potential to reduce spam, none is a panacea, and email providers will likely be in an "arms race" with spammers for many years to come. Accordingly, IBM is attacking spam on multiple fronts. Our efforts include:

• Open Standards. Open standards are key to implementing anti-spam mechanisms. Proprietary algorithms and products are fine, and have advantages in certain contexts, but they must plug together and interoperate in standard ways. We are also working closely with Lotus and the wider Internet community, through the IETF, to lead the definition of standards and protocols that will help to turn back the tide of spam worldwide.
• Anti-Spam Filtering. IBM Research is pioneering advanced methods of detecting and filtering spam, including learning algorithms and collaborative filtering, and we are working closely with IBM Lotus Division to ensure that these technologies find their way rapidly onto our customers' desktops.
• Managing Bulk E-Mail. The GECS and EPAL projects enable marketers to encode and enforce privacy policies across an organization and an organization's partners to ensure that they respect the privacy preferences of their customers and that they follow the growing body of legal requirements on legitimate bulk e-mail.

We are also working with our government liason offices to help craft and harmonize international anti-spam laws, with IBM Tivoli Division to provide compliance tools for legitimate commercial users of email, and with the IBM CIO's office to keep our antispam research grounded in the realities of a company with over 300,000 email users.