FAQ How spam works

From Computer Evolution Knowledgebase

The reason you receive so much unwanted e-mail is simply that it is an effective form of advertising. If spam were not effective, it would have died off soon after being invented. But as you can tell by the number of unwanted messages in your inbox, it's flourishing.

Spam is a business

Spam is a form of advertising, no different from telemarketers or junk mailers—and it's a very cost effective form of advertising, too. E-mailing 10,000 people costs a fraction of what it would cost to call or mail 1,000 people. Such low overhead allows a much wider audience to be reached, and only a tiny percentage needs to respond to make a profit.

Some people like spam

As scary as this may sound, it's true. Some people love any form of communication sent to them. Although these people are (thankfully) few and far between, they are out there.

No one is sure how to combat spam

Microsoft supports an anti-framework technology called Sender ID. Sender Policy Framework (SPF) is gainingpopularity among the open source crowd. AOL and Yahoo just announced a pay per e-mail scheme. And Bayesian filters are starting to appear in e-mail clients. Which, if any of these, will be an overall solution to spam is unknown. But even as these technologies are being adopted.

73 percent of total internet e-mail is spam

A study conducted by Industry Canada showed that in 2006, 73 percent of all Internet e-mail was spam. This leads to approximately 3.5 Terabytes of spam e-mail being sent every day.

Spam is usually smaller than a normal e-mail (60K versus 6K)

One fact about spam that's often overlooked is size. The number of messages is staggering, but the average spam e-mail is only 1/10 the size of a normal e-mail. This makes that 2.5 TB of daily spam all the more amazing.

The amount of spam being sent is growing

Studies indicate that the amount of spam being sent every year is on the rise. Whereas 2006 showed the spam as 73 percent of total e-mail, 2007 is shaping up to be more than 83 percent, with nearly every month showing more than 1 percent total increase from the previous month.

Spam costs U.S. business over 20 billion a year

The amount of cost businesses incur dealing with spam is astronomical. These costs appear in many ways, including increased need/use of bandwidth, lost user productivity, increased storage needs, and cost of spam fighting. A study by Vircom indicates that these factors up the average cost per mailbox to $1,400.

IM spam (spam) is on the rise

Reports are showing now that one in three IM users have been targeted by IM spam. This new type of advertising went from effectively 0 percent in 2003 to nearly 5 percent of all messages in 2004. You can be sure that if there's money to be made, the increase will continue.

Many users think they can stop spam by unsubscribing

Many spam e-mails contain a link to unsubscribe. Knowledgeable users know this is nothing but a way to confirm working e-mail addresses, but many more users do not. Clicking this link has been shown to increase spam by more than 85 percent, while replying to the e-mail with a request to unsubscribe has been shown to increase spam by a staggering 192 percent.

Spam is short for spiced ham

The name spam was taken for junk e-mail after the Monty Python skit in which Vikings drown out all other noise by shouting “SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM."