Overview[]
In early 2004, a group of business, industry and marketing companies, including Bigfoot Interactive, Email Sender and Provider Coalition (ESPC), Microsoft, Symantec and Sendmail, began meeting to pursue solutions to authenticate email and improve user confidence.
In September 2007, the Authentication and Online Trust Alliance (AOTA) was formed as a Washington State non-profit corporation. In March 2009, the Board of Directors and Steering Committee voted to change the name to the Online Trust Alliance (OTA), representing a global view of the issues impacting consumer trust and online brand reputation.
The mission of the OTA is to create an online trust community, promoting business practices and technologies to enhance consumer trust and the vitality of interactive marketing, e-commerce, governmental and online financial services. OTA is the only global organization which represents the broad internet ecosystem supporting user choice and control, protection of critical infrastructure, privacy and data governance, promoting marketing best practices, balanced legislation, benchmark reporting, and self-governance.
Anti-botnet activities[]
The OTA is working with key stakeholders in the public and private sectors to address the threats resulting from bots. The strategy is to focus on a holistic view, including prevention, detection and remediation. OTA efforts include working with law enforcement, ISPs and web site hosting companies in take-down efforts, promoting best practices to reduce the distribution of bots and aiding users to reduce the vulnerability attack surface.