Surge in spam continues

The fight against spam continues yet, despite throwing technology at it from all angles, the rates of spam continue to rise, currently representing 95 percent of all email sent.

by Helen Leggatt

In 2001, spam represented 5 percent of all global email. A lot has changed in the past six years. Legitimate emails in 2007 accounted for just 5 percent of those sent globally, with spam accounting for the other 95 percent.

The figures, revealed recently in Barracuda Networks’ annual spam study of 50,000 customers worldwide, and reported by CNET, shows another year of spam increases, up from 85 percent in 2006.

Other findings include:

- Use of email attachments by spammers rose in 2007.

- Half of surveyed users received 5 or less spam emails a day, 65 percent received less than 10 and 13 percent received 50 or more spam emails a day.

- 57 percent of those surveyed put spam as the worst form of junk advertising, followed by 31 percent who said postal junk mail and 12 percent who nominated telemarketing.

The sheer volume of spam will continue to overwhelm inboxes until something can be done to stem the flow. Many believe the solution needs to be community-based, and not left up to the individual.

Tags: email marketing, junk advertising, spam

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American spammers have almost wrecked e-mail as a reliable means of communication. The US authorities have done almost nothing about it since the "You CAN Spam" 'law' of 2003. Why? Because they think spammers are "Struggling businessmen trying to make a living in the great Free Enterprise System", while the rest of us know they're scamming lying cheating scammers.

Posted by: Fred on December 12, 2007 13:32

Rather than focus on spam rates which will undoubtedly grow...just as junk mail did, why not focus more positively on response rates. Are more people in absolute buying or assisted in buying through email marketing despite dropping response rates.

Posted by: Alex Har on December 13, 2007 03:11

I agree with the comment about response rates - we've been working on getting response rates from sales up, but seem to have been doing it without much comment from elsewhere. Of course there are the self-styled gurus who come in with their list of 10 things to do, but in terms of detailed research there is little around. Selling a £20 book we have managed to get actual sales on a list of schools, mailed to the info@ and admin@ address up to 1%. This has taken a year of experimentation and testing - but it shows that it can be done. But I have to admit we are nowhere near getting this in general. Our reports are on www.mailing.org.uk

Posted by: Tony Attwood on December 13, 2007 12:05