The Costs of Spam.

Links to Estimates on the Cost of Spam Email Abuse

If there is any one single phrase you do not want to say to an anti-spammer, it is the phrase "just hit delete." For some reason spammers and spam apologists do not seem to able grasp the idea that there are real and tangible costs that result from spam email abuse that go far beyond the time required for a recipient to wade through a flooded inbox and delete their spam while trying to find their valid and legitimate email.

Detroit News. March 14, 2004.     Spam and smut     Much of the concern about spam now focuses on its cost to business. Some experts say a bigger problem is the amount of pornography flowing into inboxes. Estimates vary widely because spam is unregulated, but here's a look at numbers that frame the debate:     Internet users in United States:     200 million     Internet users in Michigan:     5.6 million     Daily e-mail messages worldwide:     &30 billion;     Percent e-mail that's spam:     60 percent     Percent spam that's pornographic:     14 percent     Percent pornographic spam containing obscene images:     17 percent     Annual cost of spam (lost productivity, software):     10 billion to $87 billion. Sources: the Federal Trade Commission, Brightmail and the Pew Internet and American Life Project          Fight over spam hits home

Australia the-age.com. January 11, 2004     All told, according to Nielsen//NetRatings, there are 182.13 million US internet users, which means nearly one and a half trillion -- 1,467,967,800,000 -- spams were received by US users alone in 2003. Since major US ISPs began using spam filters in a big way during the year -- and many say they catch half or more of all the spam that targets subscribers -- the real spam problem could have amounted to more than 2 trillion spam mails having been addressed to US email users over the year.         Email pests on the rise: 2 trillion spams in US alone

Australia the-age.com. January 11, 2004     Well over half of email traffic is spam, compared with less than 20 per cent when the National Office for the Information Economy began an inquiry two years ago, following another federal review four years ago. Anti-spam legislation finally comes into effect on April 11.     In Australia, the time and bandwidth lost to spam is estimated to cost business up to $2 billion a year.         Spam Brings Home a Harsh Reality.

Australia the-age.com. January 11, 2004     Despite the development of filtering mechanisms, it is estimated that the cost of spam to Australian businesses in lost productivity is $960 per employee, per year, and the situation is unlikely to improve in the near future.         Legal bid to break through the spam jam.