Slashdot Mirror
What Is The Real Cost of Spam?
securitas writes "The NY Times has a nice feature about the diverging estimates of the costs of spam (Google). The estimates vary widely from $10 billion to $87 billion per year for American workers, and even more for global costs. Critics say that research firms' estimates vastly overstate the actual cost of spam. Public institutions like Indiana University have to be sensitive to the First Amendment rights of the spammers. And at companies like Nortel Networks, security architect Chris Lewis says that the real economic burden is the 10 to 15 percent - 5,000 to 10,000 messages a day - of the spam that still gets through, which costs the company about $1 in lost productivity per message. The costs can be much higher if a top executive is upset or mad about spam. "If someone in senior management gets spammed," Mr. Lewis said, "it could take 20 or 30 hours of everyone's time, up and down the chain." A chart of the per user amount of spam and the time spent processing it, as well as the varying estimates of the per user cost of spam are included in the article."
A $1.95 a can...last time I checked
Well, yes, since the CEO needs to ask his assistant to ask a senior manager to ask the Spam Control Committee to ask a freshly-hired sysadmin to fucking hit his goddamn delete key. All that and more for just $50 million a year, plus golden parachute!
...which costs the company about $1 in lost productivity per message.
Where can I find a job where I get paid $1 every time I press the delete button? I'll fax in my resume' right away!
I don't like wading through Spam... too gooey and greasy.
503 Sig Unavailable
The Signature could not be accessed. Please try again later or contact the administrator
Spam has cost me over $10,000, and my dick STILL isn't any bigger.
> that amounts to $360/hr
Shush!! That's not what it costs!! That's just what you tell the lawyers it costs!
Obviously it just takes under a second to decide to delete it and press the `delete` key, plus however long Outlook feels like taking, to actually delete it.
I expect lots of mod's down for overrated... come on people, dont' hold back!
This sounds a lot like some of the spam I get.
The cost: hours and hours of experimentation.
Wow. Marriage sure has changed you, CmdrTaco!
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
To: CEO
From: John Smith
Subject: V*I*A*G*R*A
To: CEO
From: Your Buddy
Subject: Are you feeling a little less than you could be?
Now let's take a poll. How long wold it take for most of you to figure out this is Spam? How many of you would approach the 10 second mark for deleting both of these? If you are, then you have a slow trigger finger.
Everybody dies frustrated and sad and that is beautiful
just leave your name and e-mail address in a reply to this post. You'll be e-mailed with the answer within 1-2 minutes. /me runs
And before you say "never give out your e-mail" there are Sales and Support people that really don't have a choice.
Not to mention those public e-mail addresses on websites... "support@mycompany.com" that are just absolutely drowned with spam.
Don't forget that, thanks to email worms, there's really no such thing as a "private" email address anymore. If you forwarded an email to a friend, who forwarded to a friend, ad nauseum any one of those people in the trail not only has the address, but might also unwillingly pass it on to others if infected with an email worm.
The problem here is that an email address is basically like giving out a master key to your house, just so someone can drop off a note. There's no authentication inherent in the specifications.
This is why I think that all sub-standard open source mail servers should be outlawed in favor of Exchange 2000, which in coordination with Active Directory is the only messaging solution which supports a PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) whereby sources of email can be authenticated by the sender's trusted certificate, and if necessary blocked.
My job is NOT to babysit the fat waste of space who's getting a paycheck ten times the size of mine.
Your job is to do what the fuck you are told. If you honestly think your half-assed "broke/fix it" troubleshooting technique is worth even a dollar more than you're already making, you are sadly deluded. Frankly, we could buy about 10 anti-spam software solutions with the money we waste paying you to sit in your chair cruising slashdot.org on company time while smelling your own farts. The only thing that's keeping us from firing you and replacing you with a fresh-faced new and shiny space monkey MCSE from the community college is that you might be able to collect unemployment from us, unless you give us a good reason to fire you for insubordination. Keep it up, jerk-ass.
-Your Boss
Everyone must be adopting the RIAA method of calculating costs due to "illegal" actions.
Researchers: Hey, your company only makes $10 million net per year. How the hell are you claiming $1 billion in lost profit due to spam?
Company: Wha?? Look at the monkey! Look at the silly monkey...
Researchers: Oh, I see. $1 billion it is.
- I love animals. I try to eat at least one a day.
Next question?
-- Stamp out entropy. ->dryguy@bellsloth.net
If any /.ers were left alone with a notorious spammer(s),
They would do worse things to their anus then Kobe did to Kaitlyn Faber.
Just as commercials on television pay for the programming you get to enjoy, advertisements in email are there to defray the cost of the email infrastructure. If you don't take the time to read these short, unintrusive messages, advertisers will be unwilling to pay to advertise on the internet. Who then will pay for the email system you take for granted?
The evasion of commercial email is a serious ethical, moral, and legal issue. Users caught implementing "filters" to evade their responsibilities could face an expensive lawsuit or even jail time.
We as a society must learn to respect the copyrights and first amendment rights of bulk emailers, many of whom struggle to put food on the table for their families. To summarize:
1. Commercial email deletion is a serious moral and legal issue.
2. "Everyone does it" or "I didn't know it was illegal to filter spam" are not valid excuses.
3. Filter users could face an expensive lawsuit or even jail time. To avoid this threat, just delete all spam filtering software you may have installed on your computer.
4. We will not rest until this insidious form of electronic shoplifting is eradicated for good.
Sure, spam has cost me a lot over the years, but if this deal comes through helping Mrs. Mariam Sese-Seko (widow of late president Mobuto Sese-Seko of Zaire) transfer her money out of the country, I'll have more than broke even!
I object to that article, and to the next reply.
The lost productivity due to spam is inconsequential compared to the lost productivity due to Slashdot.
http://yetanotherpoliticalrant.blogspot.com
It's because spam is incredibly annoying as opposed to merely damaging. If a virus is a knife in the guts once a year, spam is a snotty finger in the eye, twenty times a day, forever. Not surprising that many people make stopping spam a higher priority.
Vino, gyno, and techno -Bruce Sterling