One third of email now spam

Found on The Register on Monday, 19 April 2004
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Analysts IDC reckons that spam represented 32 per cent of all email sent on an average day in North America in 2003, doubling from 2001. That figure is less than the 50 per cent or more junk mail statistic commonly cited by email-filtering firms like MessageLabs and Brightmail but it still represents a serious problem.

The effect of spam - measured in clogged inboxes, lost worker productivity and wasted IT resources - is measured in millions of dollars annually for larger organisations. Adding to this, three-quarters of the IT executives responding to an IDC survey feel the spam tsunami will only get worse over the next two years.

IDC surveyed 1,000 IT managers representing organizations of various sizes and industries in North America in developing its return on investment calculations. It also interviewed 30 senior IT executives representing a range of vertical industries in greater detail.

From my personal opinion, it's more than 32%, so I checked the logfiles of my mailserver. 1192 emails have been accepted, and 903 have been rejected because the servers were listed on XBL/SBL/ORDB. That are more than 43%. My spam scanner tagged another 668 emails. If I add those too, I end up with almost 75%. Perhaps they meant that 32% are no spam. Someone must have mixed that up.