For Immediate Release
| For Immediate Release TRUSTe PROVIDES INDUSTRY-LEADING OVERSIGHT TO CERTIFY IRONPORT'S "BONDED SENDER" EMAIL PROGRAM TRUSTe and IronPort Partner to Offer Bonded Sender to Identify Legitimate Email San Francisco April 29, 2003 TRUSTe, the leading privacy certification and seal program, today announced that it has partnered with IronPort, the leading messaging gateway company, to support and certify IronPort's Bonded Sender email program. Bonded Sender utilizes TRUSTe's privacy oversight, standards and dispute resolution capabilities, widely deployed Internet standards and IronPort's systems for tracking email senders to improve individuals' and organizations' ability to identify trusted sources of email. The program underscores TRUSTe's ongoing commitment to working with industry, consumers and privacy advocates to develop consistent standards to distinguish and recognize legitimate email. Designed specifically to combat the negative effects of the ever-increasing deluge of "SPAM" emails received by Internet users every day, Bonded Sender is a proven and market-driven program to help Internet Service Providers (ISPs) identify legitimate sources of email messages. Today's email filters block many SPAM messages, but also prevent consumers from receiving some expected, wanted and legitimate email. Bonded Sender will require email senders to adhere to privacy and consent standards, undergo a certification process and guarantee the legitimacy of their email by offering their own money as their bond. This market-based approach will result in increased delivery rates for participating senders, improved identification of legitimate email by ISPs and enhanced email delivery for consumers. "As a leading advocate for consumer privacy, TRUSTe has worked with thousands of organizations to certify their Web sites, has guided the Internet community toward better Web site privacy statements and enhanced respect for consumers' personally identifiable information. Our commitment to actively address privacy issues for all from consumers to businesses and from privacy groups to ISPs has led us to focus on email. These constituents all want privacy and consent standards for legitimate senders" said Fran Maier, executive director of TRUSTe. "Bonded Sender continues TRUSTe's commitment to create widely accepted industry standards to identify legitimate email and to provide an effective and potent dispute resolution outlet." "IronPort wanted the leader in privacy standards to bring certifiable best practices and a widely recognized privacy validation to Bonded Sender," said Scott Weiss, CEO of IronPort. "TRUSTe, and its long history of third party validation, best practices and privacy seals, was the perfect match for our innovative gateway products and services to improve email. We're excited to offer Bonded Sender to consumers and to the marketplace as the next wave in email validation." In addition to the Bonded Sender program, TRUSTe and IronPort will also unveil "Bonded Sender Plus." This enhanced program calls for adherence to the same privacy and technical requirements as Bonded Sender, but additionally requires all mailing lists and email senders to maintain a strict double opt-in policy. For more information on the Bonded Sender program, please visit www.bondedsender.com. TRUSTe's work with IronPort will also extend to IronPort's SenderBase, a free service designed to help email administrators better manage incoming email streams akin to a credit reporting service for email. Participation by email senders in TRUSTe's Web seal program will be indicated at www.senderbase.org, making Web seal certification another important factor in assessing the legitimacy of a sender's email. The value of this data has been bolstered by a recent Center for Democracy & Technology study indicating that respectful privacy practices help consumers reduce the amount of unwanted email. TRUSTe's ongoing commitment to email privacy is also marked by its launch in 2002 of the "TRUSTe Trusted Sender" program, a groundbreaking email certification and seal program to bring consumer trust to commercial email developed in partnership with the ePrivacy Group. Trusted Sender is the first program of its kind and offers consumers as well as ISPs and enterprises the ability to instantly separate legitimate email messages from those sent by companies and/or individuals who may not respect consumer privacy. About TRUSTe Founded in 1997, TRUSTe runs an award-winning global privacy certification and seal program. Its seal programs are considered Safe Harbors for the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and the EU Safe Harbor Framework. Today, TRUSTe maintains the largest privacy seal program with more than 1,400 Web sites certified throughout the world including AOL, Microsoft, IBM, Nationwide and The New York Times. TRUSTe's mission extends standards, certification and oversight into email with Bonded Sender and wireless with the Wireless Advisory Committee. For more information on TRUSTe please visit www.truste.org. | | Contacts: Carolyn Hodge Matt Sullivan |
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