A group of companies concerned about the spread of phishing, including Microsoft Corp., eBay Inc. and WholeSecurity Inc., have banded together to start a service that will serve as an early-warning network for new attacks.

The Phish Report Network is a cooperative effort among all of the involved parties, but the information clearinghouse will be run by WholeSecurity, a provider of client-side security solutions. The company has been involved in anti-phishing efforts for some time, and sells a product known as Web Called-ID that helps customers identify spoofed Web sites.

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On first read, this sounds okay. Then you start to wonder about the nitty gritty details. Is this just another half-baked agenda, like Microsoft’s e-mail ID scheme? It would seem to me that any such anti-phishing effort would have to be hard-coded into every existing browser out there, or you might as well go back to your game of Freecell.