The Palo Alto, California-based company offers a trust mark service designed to beat spam by identifying non-spam e-mail. It relies on a unique set of lines, known as a warrant mark, which is embedded in the headers of outgoing e-mail. Included in the Habeas lines is a haiku poem, a form of Japanese poetry.
Businesses with a license from Habeas agree to send out e-mail with its warrant mark in the headers. Those who counterfeit the Habeas warrant mark or do not follow the licensing terms can be sued using copyright and trade mark laws, which are more powerful and better established than spam-specific laws.
Launched in August 2002, the Habeas service is already used in more than 100 countries to protect more than 300 million e-mail addresses. A number of spam filters incorporate the Habeas system in their services.
Anne Mitchell, CEO of Habeas, said:
"Spam is an epidemic. Habeas is built on the premise that our novel application of Federal copyright and trademark protection can stop spam, which is time consuming, resource draining, and costs everyone money."
