SAN FRANCISCO, October 21 /PRNewswire/ -- The largest global industry association tackling spam and other messaging concerns, the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG) has announced committee chair appointments for the coming year as it continues to develop initiatives to improve messaging safeguards. The 2009-2010 chairs will be instrumental in driving the organization's efforts to curtail bots, spam, Web messaging abuse, mobile threats and emerging vulnerabilities.

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MAAWG is the only organization that systematically addresses all aspects of messaging abuse by concurrently developing programs focused on technology, industry collaboration and public policy. The committees that foster work in these areas are:

-- The MAAWG Technical Committee, which organizes members' expertise around the technology issues important to ISPs, network operators and other members. The committee co-chairs are Michael Adkins of AOL and Pat Peterson of Cisco IronPort Systems LLC. -- The MAAWG Collaboration Committee sponsors projects that encourage industry cooperation by exchanging best practices, sharing vital information and providing tools to improve communications. The co- chairs are George Bilbrey of Return Path, Heather Lord from an ISP- member company, and Carsten Pinnow of 11 Internet, a European ISP. -- Maintaining close links with regulatory authorities in various regions of the world, the MAAWG Public Policy Committee promotes cooperation among all the communities interested in maintaining online safety and also produces the quarterly MAAWG email metrics reports. The committee is co-chaired by ISP-member Susan Israel and Luc Mathan from France Telecom Orange. -- The organization also appointed its first MAAWG Public Policy Senior Advisor. Jean-Christophe Le Toquin of Microsoft Europe, Middle East and Africa is working with the MAAWG Public Policy Committee to promote global cooperation among industry, law enforcement and public policy agencies to curtain messaging abuse. Other appointments for the core MAAWG committees are: -- Alex Bobotek of ATT and Will Clurman of Cloudmark, Inc., who are continuing as co-chairs of the MAAWG Wireless SIG. The special interest group addresses methods to curtail existing and new forms of mobile abuse. -- Continuing co-chair Dennis Dayman of Eloqua Corp. is serving with new co-chairs Jeff Macdonald of e-Dialog, and Tara Natanson of Constant Contact, Inc. in leading the MAAWG Senders SIG. The SIG defines processes to improve consent-based email reliability while ensuring sender accountability and transparency. -- J.D. Falk of Return Path, Chris Roosenraad of Time Warner Cable, and Charles Stiles of Goodmail Systems, Inc. are continuing as co-chairs of the MAAWG Program Committee, which develops the agenda for the three multi-track educational meetings MAAWG holds each year. -- The MAAWG ISP Closed Colloquium will continue to be led by Michael O'Reirdan. The ISPCC organizes invitation-only sessions with network operators each day of the three-day MAAWG General Meetings to discuss relevant topics.

We are an effective organization because MAAWG has the breadth of talent within our membership to delegate important leadership roles to the appropriate messaging anti-abuse professionals from ISPs, email providers, the volume senders community and anti-virus vendors. The MAAWG Board appoints chairs to their positions because they are highly-respected leaders in their fields and have extensive experience in their specialties, said Jerry Upton, MAAWG executive director.

Committee Work at MAAWG General Meeting

Many of these committees have subcommittees addressing specific issues and also have organized working sessions at the upcoming MAAWG 17th General Meeting. To be held in Philadelphia on Oct. 26-28 with additional training classes on Oct. 29, the meeting has 25 sessions featuring technical experts, researchers, government agencies, other Internet security and anti-abuse organizations, and panel discussions on important security topics.

The meeting keynote by Brigadier General David B. Warner, director, communications and information, chief information officer of the headquarters Air Force Space Command at Peterson Air Force Base, will review the new military cyber security initiative. The two MAAWG professional development classes will cover Wireshark protocol analysis and provide media and business communications guidelines. More information is available at www.MAAWG.org.

About the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG)

The Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG) is where the messaging industry comes together to work against spam, viruses, denial-of-service attacks and other online exploitation. MAAWG (www.MAAWG.org) represents almost one billion mailboxes from some of the largest network operators worldwide. It is the only organization addressing messaging abuse holistically by systematically engaging all aspects of the problem, including technology, industry collaboration and public policy. MAAWG leverages the depth and experience of its global membership to tackle abuse on existing networks and new emerging services. Headquartered in San Francisco, Calif., MAAWG is an open forum driven by market needs and supported by major network operators and messaging providers.

Media Contact: Linda Marcus, APR, +1-714-974-6356, LMarcus@astra.cc, Astra Communications

MAAWG Board of Directors: AOL; ATT ; Cloudmark, Inc.; Comcast ; Cox Communications; France Telecom ; Goodmail Systems; Openwave Systems ; Time Warner Cable; Verizon Communications; and Yahoo! Inc.

MAAWG Full Members: 11 Internet AG; Bizanga LTD; Cisco Systems, Inc.; Constant Contact (CTCT); e-Dialog; Eloqua Corporation; Experian CheetahMail; Genius.com; Internet Initiative Japan, ; McAfee Inc.; NeuStar, Inc.; Return Path, Inc.; Spamhaus; Sprint; and Symantec

A complete member list is available at http://www.maawg.org/about/roster.

SOURCE: Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG)

CONTACT: Linda Marcus, APR, +1-714-974-6356, LMarcus@astra.cc, of AstraCommunications