I’ve seen my share of FUD articles shrilly complaining that Microsoft’s Sender ID is really an evil plot to extort money from ISPs and take over the (Internet) world. They’ve always struck me as having a large gap in them where they’re supposed to explain how Sender ID is the secret weapon that will let Microsoft do this.

And just as many times, I’ve been left wondering. No one seems to have a clue why Sender ID will make Microsoft more powerful or richer.

At least until now. I finally got through the thick skin of a certain Deep Byte. It turns out the others were right all the time. Here’s what he had to say:

You see, here’s how we make money off Sender ID: in order to update your domain records to include your domain ID info, you need a computer. Since most computers run Windows, users are likely to use a Windows PC to update their domain. It’s genius, I tell you.

See? An evil plot any way you look at it.

That’s not really ALL Deep Byte had to say…

Seriously, though, what’s overlooked is that MS will support both Sender ID and Domain Keys where it makes sense; we’re not going to turn our nose up at it because it’s not ours. It’s just that Domain Keys are not finished while Sender ID is. Sender ID may not be perfect, but it’s better than nothing. When users are nervous about the security of e-mail, it makes them shy away from using it. Anything that can be done to make things better should be done… and what we have is a good first step.

Well, it was a nice Evil Plot while it lasted…

[tags]microsoft,hotmail[/tags]