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Activities

Work in Progress

MAAWG is driven by market needs and the insight of its global membership.  With member companies from Asia, Europe, North America and South America, the organization currently is working on a variety of initiatives addressing ongoing and emerging messaging abuse issues, including bot mitigation, cooperative industry outreach, Web messaging abuse, DNS abuse, wireless messaging, senders issues and other topics.

MAAWG is the only organization that targets messaging abuse by simultaneously focusing on the varied facets of the international challenge.  Our committees are organized around technology, industry collaboration, cooperative public policy efforts and special interest groups.  Projects are accomplished within these groups and their associated subcommittees.  MAAWG is a member of the London Action Plan (LAP) and an associate partner of the StopSpamAlliance, has liaison relationships with the IETF and other organizations, and often joins forces with public policies agencies and other anti-abuse organizations. 

Technical Committee icon

Technical Committtee

Wireless SIG icon

Wireless SIG

Collaboration Committee icon

Collaboration Committee

Senders SIG icon

Senders SIG

Public Policy Committee icon

Public Policy Committee

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ISPCC

(ISP Closed Colloquium)

Published Documents and Email Metrics Reports

Find all the current MAAWG best practices, white papers, reports and surveys here - from ISP bot mitigation to recommendations for improving volume email deliverability.  MAAWG papers have been developed through a collaborative process among our global membership, often with assistance from our expert MAAWG Senior Technical Advisors.

The complete archive of our email metrics reports – the MAAWG Email Metrics Program: The Network Operators’ Perspective – is also available to the public.  These reports provide the only snapshot of abusive email traffic compiled from data provided directly from ISPs and email providers.

MAAWG Public Policy Commentary

As Internet policies and legislation continue to evolve globally, MAAWG actively seeks to provide the critical technical and strategic insights necessary to protect online messaging from spam and abuse. MAAWG-issued comments and industry guidance are available from the Activites menu and address proposals, RFCs (Requests for Comments), policies and methodologies issued by international Internet governing organizations, legislative bodies, law enforcement and other public policy agencies. MAAWG is technologically and politically neutral, and our goal is to leverage the expertise of our varied membership to contribute to a safer online experience for all.

Professional Training

MAAWG now has several online training videos available to the industry at no charge. The newest series is the MAAWG Candian Anti-spam Legislation (CASL) Training Videos with Industry Canada Policy Advisor André Leduc and and Shaun Brown, Counsel at nNovation LLP. Also available is IPv6 for Senders by MAAWG Sr. Tech Advisor Joe St Sauver explaining the transition to the new protocol for high-volume senders.  DKIM Implementation by experts Dave Crocker and Murray Kucherawy, both instrumental in the adoption of this standard, discuss DomainKeys Indentified Mail theory and implementation. Live training courses scheduled for the next MAAWG meeting are described in the Upcoming Training page.

MAAWG Documents in Multiple Languages

To encourage global participation, several MAAWG documents and news releases have been translated into multiple languages.
Arabic, Chinese, French, German,
Portuguese, Russian, Spanish

      

MAAWG Updates

  • 2010 MAAWG Consumer Survey Key Findings Report indicates consumer don't relate risky email behavior to bots.  The survey was expanded this year to cover North America and Western Europe, and the full report includes country specific data and more charts.
  • Only MAAWG members can contribute to committee work or attend MAAWG meetings.  (See “Membership Information” to learn how your company can join.)

Participation Opportunities
With a variety of projects in process, MAAWG currently is exploring abuse on mobile platforms, bot mitigation practices, authentication and reputation, IPv6 bot and migration issues, volume senders’ concerns and other pertinent topics.  A complete list of active MAAWG projects is available to members by logging into the Members-Only site.

Upcoming MAAWG General Meeting Highlights
The MAAWG 23rd General Meeting Oct. 24-27, 2011 in Paris, France, will offer multi-track sessions on a variety of anti-abuse messaging topics, from wireless spam to public policy.  It will also include MAAWG membership work on technical issues, public policy and government Initiatives, and committee work.  

The agenda and registration are now available to members-only (requires login).  MAAWG meetings, are multiple-track events with leading industry experts, researchers and public policy officials that are held three times a year and are generally attended by 200 to 300 members.

Newsroom

Latest News from MAAWG

MAAWG in the News

December 20, 2011
"The filtering technologies outlined in these bills also would significantly impact the currently reliable messaging processes that are depended on worldwide and would require drastic architectural changes to existing network operations," MAAWG added.
December 05, 2011
"There's a great desire among large ISPs to tackle botnets," said Michael O'Reirdan, chair of Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG) . . .
October 29, 2010
by Louis Trager on presentation by Alex Bobotek, MAAWG Vice Co-Chairman

Updates

  • CASL VIDEO NOW AVAILABLE TO INDUSTRY-The detailed MAAWG training course on the Canadian Anti-spam Legislation (CASL) with an Industry Canada Sr. Policy Advisor and others explaining the new law can be viewed or shared for educational purposes (see MAAWG Training Videos from the Activities menu.)  Supplemental video of the interactive Q&A from the session is available to members only and requires login.
  • MAAWG tribute to J.D. Falk.
  • The MAAWG epending position paper is now available.
  • MAAWG Chairman Michael O’Reirdan talks about bot remediation at the CSIS with Howard Schmidt, Obama Administration Cybersecurity Coordinator and an interesting panel.  Listen to the Oct. 4 discussion here: Public-Private Partnership: The ISP Role in Fighting Malware.
  • O'Reirdan has been appointed to the U.S. FCC’s Third Communications Security, Reliability, and Interoperability Council that works to ensure optimal security and reliability of communications systems.
  • MAAWG Vice Co-Chair Alex Bobotek spoke in August at the China National Computer Network Emergency Response Team (CNCERT) Annual Conference in Dalian, China as MAAWG extends its anti-abuse outreach to Asia.
  • Now available: Videos of the announcement by the EastWest Institute of the first U.S.-China anti-spam (HD) efforts and other highlights from the February MAAWG 21st General Meeting in Orlando, Florida. (Low resolution videos.)


The Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG) is where the messaging industry comes together to work against spam, botnets, viruses, denial-of-service attacks and other online exploitation.

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  • Info for Consumers

    MAAWG members cooperate on developing recommendations to help the industry better protect consumers from spam and messaging abuse.  However, MAAWG cannot assist or respond to individual questions or complaints.  Please see our Consumer Information page for help finding an appropriate resource to assist you with these problems.