Spam volume keeps rising

Rising tides of spam are drowning the usefulness of e-mail, according to a new report from IDC.

Spam has accounted for 38 percent of the 31 billion e-mails sent each day in North America in 2004, up from 24 percent in 2002, the market researcher said.

Improved content filtering and antispam tools will help fight the problem, as will the growing use of alternative communications means, such as video conferencing and instant messaging software.

The ever-increasing intrusion by spam is forcing users and IT staff to spend extra time and energy to identify and delete such spurious e-mail, which can be entry points for viruses, worms and offensive content.

E-mail is still the most preferred form of communication--business or otherwise--over the Internet. According to IDC, the volume of e-mail sent annually worldwide exceeded 1 exabyte , or 1 billion gigabytes, for the first time last year.

IDC researcher Mark Levitt said the biggest challenge is to use the lessons learned so far and the investments made to help screen all inbound and outbound e-mails without compromising worker efficiency, corporate governance and regulatory compliance requirements.

Companies also need to "treat e-mail as the starting point, rather than the ending point, of collaboration" by integrating e-mail with instant messaging, Web conferencing and other tools, Levitt said.

[jimeisaac]

Getting rid of APAM

While I favor using the same method our ancestors used to rid themselves of wolves, a bounty, I realize that the solution has to be technical, not legislation.

[Prndll]

Of course.........

I wonder how much money Dell is giving to CNET to advertise Dell computers on their site?<br /><br />I wonder how much money is given to spammers?<br /><br />I will recommend Dell to someone who wants to buy a computer, not because of an ad on CNET but because of the quality of a Dell pc. If I had my way, ALL internet ads would become illegal. This would include spam. If this were to happen, my internet experience would become more pleasurable, safer, and easier. AOL and Burger King, MSN and double click, Viagra and spam, it's all the same.<br /><br />Where is the lawsuits filed by the makers of viagra against spammers? I always hear about spammers being arrested and shut down for spamming but I never hear anything an behalf of the patented things used in the spam.<br /><br />There is no differance between spam and any other kind of online advertising. It is all about certain companies making alot of money on "using" computer users through the idiotic idea that people are gullable enough to fall for all this gunk.<br /><br />Even as I go through the Burger King drive through and see that box of free AOL cds, I will never recommend AOL to anyone. I am always seeing stories about AOL and online advertising/online tracking, and then I see this.<br /><br />All I can say is.....OF COURSE

[sordello]

The Good the Bad and the Ugly

It is true that spam is an obvious blight on the internet although the idea that all advertising is not acceptable is a bit silly. I am trying my best to mitigate the spam problem as it is costing me a bit of money to receive text alerts on my phone of new emails. This is ridiculous to pay to receive junk emails. I have come up with the ultimate filter but, it requires an effort from the sender. My filter requires that a code must put into the body of the message before it will be accepted. This is a bit extreme but, it is my final bomb to end spam!<br /><br />On the other hand when you enter an agreement with a service like Yahoo or Google you have made an agreement to accept a certain amount of Advertising. These organizations are paid for and are in existence because of the commercial support provided from advertising. This cannot be denied and should not be derided... These are businesses and they have employees! These companies are driven by commerce and have every right to put an ad on a page while your using their service.<br />The absolute waste of bandwidth on the internet is unbelievable and I'm guessing that I get between 1500 to 2000 messages a week on three accounts every week - I never see most of them. Frankly I got tired of telling everyone to use a new email account 3 years ago and decided to try another route. So far Yahoo mail filtering system has provided the best free email system I've seen so far! just looking into Gmail now.

[sordello]

The Good the Bad and the Ugly

It is true that spam is an obvious blight on the internet although the idea that all advertising is not acceptable is a bit silly. I am trying my best to mitigate the spam problem as it is costing me a bit of money to receive text alerts on my phone of new emails. This is ridiculous to pay to receive junk emails. I have come up with the ultimate filter but, it requires an effort from the sender. My filter requires that a code must put into the body of the message before it will be accepted. This is a bit extreme but, it is my final bomb to end spam!<br /><br />On the other hand when you enter an agreement with a service like Yahoo or Google you have made an agreement to accept a certain amount of Advertising. These organizations are paid for and are in existence because of the commercial support provided from advertising. This cannot be denied and should not be derided... These are businesses and they have employees! These companies are driven by commerce and have every right to put an ad on a page while your using their service.<br />The absolute waste of bandwidth on the internet is unbelievable and I'm guessing that I get between 1500 to 2000 messages a week on three accounts every week - I never see most of them. Frankly I got tired of telling everyone to use a new email account 3 years ago and decided to try another route. So far Yahoo mail filtering system has provided the best free email system I've seen so far! just looking into Gmail now.