Yahoo! and Cisco plan to roll up their existing email sender authentication packages DomainKeys, and Internet Identified Mail (IIM) respectivly into one standard called DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM). DKIM "will be offered royalty-free to the industry-at-large."

"Yahoo! is receiving more than 350 million messages signed by DomainKeys per day. By collaborating with key industry players like Cisco and technology visionaries like Eric Allman of Sendmail, we can offer a solution that addresses the problem of e-mail forgery today, and increases the level of defense against fraudulent e-mails and phishing attacks,"

said Miles Libbey, anti-spam product manager for Yahoo! Mail.

"E-mail fraud is a global problem that ultimately costs companies millions of dollars in direct losses, technology expenditures, lost productivity and even network downtime," said Jim Fenton, Distinguished Engineer, Cisco Systems. "In accordance with our commitment to standards, Cisco is pleased to join forces with key partners such as Yahoo! on the development of an effective solution that significantly mitigates the impact of e-mail fraud on both consumers and businesses."

via: cisco press room