Spam could outnumber legitimate email this year

Filed under: E-mail

Spam could outnumber legitimate email this year

by Brad Linder Apr 11th 2007

This should come as no surprise to anyone who keeps an eye on the number of emails collecting in your spam filter: a study from IDC shows that spam emails are on the rise. In fact, the report suggests 2007 will be the first year that more spam messages are sent than actual human-to-human emails.

That's not just because spam is on the rise, though. It's also because many people are using instant messaging and VoIP clients the same way they used email a few years ago. So as real-time communication goes up, the number of personal emails sent goes down. And the spammers win.

Of course, spam filters are a lot better than they used to be, so really what this means is that nefarious companies will continue to send messages that nobody will read this year.

Tags: chat, IM, spam, voip

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Racetrack-Owner said 4:00PM on 4-11-2007

The whole IM/VOIP thing strikes me as highly speculative. In fact, the article says these mediums will merely result in slower growth, not a decline in usage. There is a huge difference, and I would venture to guess that slower growth is an insignificant drop in the bucket compared to the impact of the increase in spam message counts.

dt said 4:52PM on 4-11-2007

Where'd they get those numbers, 2003?

Spam has outnumbered ham for years. I might send 20 emails a day, but I get 100+ spam.

Googling "spam percentage" .. one of the first reports is from Symantec, who's pegged spam at way over 50% for 3 years.

http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/reference/Symantec_Spam_Report_-_February_2007.pdf

Mike Cohen said 4:55PM on 4-11-2007

I thought spam already did outnumber legitimate emails. I get over 250 spams a day, and only 100 or less legitimate emails.

Richi Jennings said 6:58PM on 4-11-2007

Reading between the lines of IDC's press release, it seems to me that we're comparing apples with oranges. I think Mark is including the number of legitimate messages that stay inside an organization.

This is typically a whole lot more than the amount that comes in from outside. It might easily double the number of messages a user receives.

More at http://www.richij.com/

Peter said 7:45AM on 4-12-2007

There is also the issue of what they consider spam. They seem to call any non human generated message spam. If I voluntarily sign up for a newsletter or receive an email alert, I wouldn't consider either of those spam even though the messages weren't generated by a human.
A little misleading, but the point is something we already knew, there A LOT of spam out there.

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