March 2004

E-Mail Inspector

By Technology Review

Spam filters weed out incoming junk e-mail, but a growing number of companies need to worry about outgoing messages, too. That's because strict new regulations on financial disclosures and the privacy of health data carry heavy fines if breached-whether intentionally or accidentally. Proofpoint, of Cupertino, CA, is working on software that automatically identifies and intercepts sensitive outgoing e-mail. The software's artificial-intelligence algorithms can learn to distinguish between documents that have many similarities but should be classified differently-for example, between a routine e-mail from one doctor to another and a similar but unauthorized message that reveals a patient's private medical information. The company expects to incorporate the algorithms into its spam detection software by the middle of this year.