(Source: Canada Newswire)SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 20 /CNW/ -- 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 1&1 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 AT&T 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.