SAVING E-MAIL

摘要

Evidence that the internet's killer apr is seriously ill can be seen in the frantic efforts to resuscitate it. The past two weeks have witnessed a flurry of activity aimed at restoring trust in E-mail as a business-consumer communication tool that has been eroded by spam and E-mail-related online fraud. How worrisome have the problems become to businesses? Bad enough that MasterCard International Inc. last week said it has created a system for round-the-clock monitoring to inform 25,000 financial-institution members worldwide within four hours of when such a scam starts. Bad enough that fierce rivals in the E-mail business―America Online, Earth-Link, Microsoft, and Yahoo―agreed last week to support each other's E-mail-authentication standards. It's also prompting a consortium of the 100 largest financial institutions to develop a common database to share reports of attacks and responses, and forcing some banks to reconsider how they use E-mail to communicate with customers.