There has never been any doubt that email is the one digital medium that businesses and consumers alike depend on the most. It’s a highly versatile tool in terms of simplicity, flexibility and universality that has allowed its longevity. Even today, the email address is probably the closest thing we have to a portable online identity and it’s the most ubiquitous means of communicating asynchronously.
However despite its resilience, Email as we know it is starting to look its age. It is the main transporter of unwanted and unsolicited information and viruses and phishing attempts, has difficulty in ensuring message privacy and is vulnerable to take-over by outside hackers and bots.
Openness, email’s greatest strength, is in some ways also its greatest weakness. There isn’t a universal standard email experience and thus comparing email services is difficult, even for technical users. Trust can be completely blind, unless you are capable of hosting and running your own email server and domain which many people do not have the resources or capacity to do.
It is because of its openness that we have decided to present our idea of what trusted email looks like at OpenUp Camp in Nuremburg on March 27. Mikko Linnamäki of Dovecot and I will launch Trusted Email Services (TES), an initiative to help consumers and businesses to easily identify an email provider which fulfils their trust, security and privacy needs. By meeting set technical criteria, email service providers will be awarded TES certification by Open Source Business Foundation and its Trusted Internet Services (TIS) organization.
This certification will reassure consumers that email services displaying the TES badge are trustworthy and can be safe in the knowledge that their privacy will be uncompromised. All email service providers and software vendors are encouraged to participate in the process to develop and evolve the technical criteria for TES. Currently, Open-Xchange, Dovecot and PowerDNS are members of this working group, with others joining as I write this.
The OpenUp Camp is organized by the Open Source Business Foundation and will have the opportunity to challenge their ideas and discuss topics surrounding innovation, technology, business and society. A mix of a traditional conference and a BarCamp, the event will be driven by the participants’ desire to share ideas and the freedom in terms of what themes are discussed.
We’re expecting everyone from pioneers and geeks, to entrepreneurs and experts to attend. Quality networking and healthy debate is a certainty. The only catch is that the program won’t be so accessible for non-German speakers as it is run through German only.
More details of OpenUp Camp are available on the website, why not join us and learn how we can make Trusted Email Services more widespread.