A coalition of e-mail service providers has announced plans for registries intended to separate the good bulk e-mailers from the spammers, the latest in a series of recent antispam efforts.

The Email Service Provider Coalition (ESPC), formed by the Network Advertising Initiative, counts among its members 30 companies that provide outsourced e-mail services or Internet advertising functions for a variety of firms, including DoubleClick and Advertising.com. The group on Wednesday announced the "blueprint" for a registry standard, launching in six to nine months, that would include a certification process for companies sending out bulk e-mail.

Vendors who pass the certification would get a sort of seal of approval, an alternative to current blacklists and spam filters that sometimes ban legitimate e-mail vendors, said Hans Peter Brondmo, senior vice president for strategy for Digital Impact and chairman of the ESPC technology working group.

High-volume e-mailers would get a score something like a credit rating, based on numbers of customer complaints, how many times people have to unsubscribe and other factors, Brondmo said. High-volume e-mailers would submit to performance ratings as a way to remain on the registry, and the coalition hopes that the registry will serve as a whitelist that ensures e-mail users of legitimate e-mailers.

The certification process for the registry, code-named Project Lumos, would require bulk e-mailers to reveal their identities by requiring a standardization of all sender information in mail headers and an authentication process that provides a secure proof of identity in the SMTP header.

The registry would say, "Here's who I am, I'll be that person tomorrow, I'm willing to adhere to certain best practices," Brondmo said.

Brondmo acknowledged that companies sending unsolicited commercial e-mail may not want to be part of the registry, but that's when blacklists and spam filters should be unleashed, he said. "We believe a properly administered blacklist would likely be a part of the future," he added.

The problem with blacklists and spam filters right now is the confusion on how legitimate e-mailers can stay off those lists or get off once they're put on, Brondmo said. Project Lumos would bring " trust, transparency and accountability into the fabric of e-mail," he said.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.