In a very welcome turn of events, it looks like Hotmail is now requiring e-mail sender verification. I’m still a bit unclear about what exactly it takes to authenticate a sender, but it looks like the Direct Marketing Association is on board.

I wonder what this will do to the Tell a Friend feature we see in most “viral” pieces these days. Based on the above articles it looks like the only people who need to worry about the new requirements, are those people who have built their own in-house technology, and I’m assuming this would mean most Tell a Friend features.

The bigger question however, is how big of an issue will this actually be? When was the last time you received something spread virally where the Tell a Friend feature was actually used? I can’t think of the last time anybody sent one to me. Web surfers these days are much more savvy, and they know how to copy/paste URL’s into their e-mail or IM client, without any need for an embedded Tell a Friend feature.

Looking at it that way, it looks like this will only end up hurting the people who need to be helped the most. Unsavvy web surfers who are still relying on the embedded Tell a Friend. Those same people who will probably not even know to look in their junk e-mail for potentially mis-filtered e-mail.