Spam – More Expensive Than You Thought!
9 Feb 2009 by Dick Branston
Spam emails, we all get them, every day in fact and they are very annoying but did you realise just how big a problem they really are?
Let’s starts with some astonishing facts. Cisco calculated that last year 120 billion spam messages were sent daily worldwide. That was double the previous year. Furthermore, it is generally agreed that at least 80% of all emails sent are spam.
In November 2008 the global volume of spam mail decreased by at least 50% when a naughty ISP called McColo was forced to close down and around 83% of all spam emails in 2007 contained a URL link to a malware spouting website.
Hmmm, abundant nasty stuff.
We have all learnt to be wary of unsolicited emails but the cybercriminals continually reinvent their ruses to try and catch us out. Most recently they have latched onto the popularity of social networking sites to try to entice victims in. “My name’s Candy, I’m 19, blonde and I think you’re hot. Add me as a friend”, you get the picture.
So what should we do to guard against Candy’s hidden delights?
Rule one: common sense. If it is unsolicited get rid. The size of your manhood is perfectly fine anyway.
Rule two: recognise the tell tail signs. If it’s pharmaceuticals, lottery wins, Nigerian bank accounts or hot 19 year olds it’s not for you (face it you’re too old anyway!). Delete.
Rule three: spam filters. Configure your email to siphon off the dodgy looking messages. Get them bagged off in a folder marked ‘nice try’.
Rule Four: get anti-spam software for your PC. Load up on some spam busting kit to stop the nasty beggars even getting to your inbox.
And if you are a business, don’t forget the importance of addressing your spam issue. Time for some more startling stats.
In Australia, losses from wasted personnel time and bandwidth usage due to spam are estimated to have cost business A$2 billion a year in 2007. Again in 2007, the California legislature found that spam cost US organisations more than $13 billion. And, University of Iowa research in 2004 concluded that US business lost almost 6,000 work days per year because of staff dealing with spam.
So spam is dangerous and highly resource consuming. To avoid the costly effects of spam get prepared. Be ready to delete on sight and install up to date anti-spam software. Don’t underestimate it and don’t risk it.
Related posts:
An interesting warning about the perils of spam … but what about a view from the other side of the fence.
Are there any figures and the usual x amount of billions its costs businesses for how many legitimate emails get marked as spam and thus never seen?
Just the other day I sent an HTML email to someone and upon enquiring if the recipient had seen it the response was that he had… but it had been marked as spam and promptly escorted to the Junk mail folder. Not the best answer as the email was a template for a bulk email to be sent out to a customer base… the question didn’t need asking… if he got it marked as spam… how many customers would. For how many would this email just drop straight into that “nice try” folder with all the millions and millions of Nigerian bank account and Viagra emails with no chance of ever being seen.
I had a double check of the email to make sure it didn’t mention manhood size or come from Candy the content looked fine. It’s only sin was that it was an HTML email and contained images. A few purists believe HTML emails are evil but it’s hard to sell a nice plain text email message to clients. It just doesn’t look great… so was it just this fact triggering the anti spam robot?
So as the spam check knob is turned to the max and it gets harder to get that legitimate email through to peoples inboxes, does this mean email marketing is going to be hit?
If everyone sets up to only to receive email from people they are expecting to get email from how can a company advertise their services to potential customers? Previously a big mail out might have got you some custom from a small percentage… but the number actually getting it just went down..
If you’re selling yourself as a legitimate company and warning of what a problem junk mail is, then why am I receiving unsolicited mail from your marketing team?
Thank you for your post.
If you have received correspondance from UKFast it can be for one of only a few reasons. Firstly, you may have been in touch with us because you were at one time in the market for our services. In this case we will have asked you at the time if we could keep your details on file in order to contact about services in the future. Secondly, you might have been to an exhibition that we were at and given us your business card or email address – this could be through your letting us scan your delegate pass. Alternatively you might be on a mailing list for an IT trade magazine such as ITPro or The Register that we have partnered with to increase awareness of our campaign. If this is the case however, then the email will come directly from them.
We’ve always had a policy not to engage in activities such as spam that disadvantage other businesses. We pride ourselves on an honest approach to business and on the gumption to carry out fair and original advertising campaigns. This is why we always, without fail, include the option for email recipients to unsubscribe. I hope that in this case, as you were not interested in the service, you took advantage of this function. As you have not used a real name or email address in your post, it is not possible for us to investigate where your contact details appear in our database and for which reason they were put there.
If you would like to make contact using a real email address I am happy to continue this conversation with you in person.