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Spam Levels Lowest Since 2009

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the not-in-my-box dept.

wiredmikey writes "Following a two-week dramatic decline in spam levels, spam now accounts for 78.6 percent of all email traffic, the lowest rate since March 2009, when the global spam rate was 75.7 percent of all email traffic, according to Symantec's January 2011 MessageLabs Intelligence Report, released today. The volume of spam in circulation this month was 65.9% lower than for the same period one year ago, in January 2010, when the spam rate was 83.9% of all email traffic."

14 of 104 comments (clear)

  1. Frist Sapm! by oodaloop · · Score: 3, Funny

    Frist Sapm

    --
    Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
    1. Re:Frist Sapm! by chimpo13 · · Score: 2

      I wonder how much actual email has stopped to go straight through facebook? That's part of their plan isn't it? That'll slow down once we are all "happily" behind the FB white list. I've got a lot of friends that only use FB for sending email.

      People with accounts with password as a password will fuck it up, but not by much. They can stop taking passwords that are easily guessed. I haven't received any spam on FB or LinkedIn, but I do on orkut, friendster and myspace. I have my FB account to receive messages from anyone who wants to send one.

      Not that I keep a close eye on anything but friendster. I like walking through graveyards.

      --
      riding round the world on an old motorcycle
  2. content has changed too by peter303 · · Score: 4, Funny

    I am getting lots of solicitations for "scholarships to for profit colleges".
    And "hundreds of girls on facebook" want to date me.

    1. Re:content has changed too by fishexe · · Score: 4, Funny

      I am getting lots of solicitations for "scholarships to for profit colleges". And "hundreds of girls on facebook" want to date me.

      The IQ-boosting and penis-enhancing drugs worked, I take it?

      --
      "I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
  3. Learn, folks by Pojut · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This is why you have different email addresses. My gmail address is for personal stuff only...personal communications, confirmations for bills, that sort of thing. My hotmail address is my "general use" address, used for things like forum signups and such.

    --
    Living With a Nerd
    1. Re:Learn, folks by h00manist · · Score: 2

      funny I have a similar arrangement, gmail for real uses, hotmail for lame uses.

      --
      Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
    2. Re:Learn, folks by kellyb9 · · Score: 2

      I only have one gmail address and have reduced my number of spam messages via filtering. I found that a lot of spam content was coming from the same places. A lot of spam gets picked up via gmail's spam filtering.

    3. Re:Learn, folks by mark72005 · · Score: 2

      I have two different Gmail accounts, one for spam and one for legitimate use.

      I get a lot of 'newsletter' type garbage in the spam account, but the amount of actual "h3rb4l v14gr4" type spam is about the same in both. Gmail catches all of that and puts it in spam. I never see it in the inbox area.

    4. Re:Learn, folks by gparent · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Or I could just use gmail and not get any spam in my inbox, ever.

  4. Re:I dunno, by ByOhTek · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Well, this will make you feel even more inadequate.

    I once got a spam telling me that a real cyborg turtle could be mine!

    To this day, I'm kicking myself for not taking them up on that offer.

    --
    Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
  5. News Flash! by fishexe · · Score: 3, Insightful

    News flash! A constantly fluctuating quantity is at the lowest point it's been since a short time ago! Everybody rush to go turn on CNN and hear more about this vital piece of news!

    --
    "I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
  6. Something doesn't add up. by dstar · · Score: 3, Interesting

    How is 75.7 65.9% _lower_ than 83.9? Or are they saying that total email traffic has dropped by ~60% over the last year, and that 75.7% of current email traffic is only 28.7% of the volume in January 2010?

    Or is the lack of caffiene causing my ALU to malfunction?

  7. Re:Reasons? by garcia · · Score: 2

    This is exactly the problem. The spammers have been ramping up efforts to spam websites, forums, etc which then pollute search engines and have a higher likelihood of reaching more people who they may not have been able to spam via e-mail (due to filtering, etc).

    While I'm still getting just as much spam to my various e-mail accounts as I ever was before, the volume of referrer and comment spam has gone through the roof.

  8. Re:I still don't get it. by Captain+Splendid · · Score: 2

    IIRC correctly, there was a FP slashdot article years back that broke down the economics of spam and the short version is: Just a few clicks easily pays for millions of sent messages.

    --
    Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!