Analysis It's time to can the spam

from NewsLink, Vol. 7, No. 2, Winter 2003

According to industry experts, unsolicited e-mail messages or "spam" accounted for 40% of all e-mail traffic in November 2002 compared to 13% a year before. And the news isn't getting any better. Observers believe that by this July the volume of "spam" making its way to your mail box will soon outstrip the e-mail you'd like to read. End users aren't the only ones annoyed at this phenomena. According to Ferris Research, spam costs Corporate America $8.9 billion in lost productivity. All that time cleaning up inboxes, buying filtering software and securing servers definitely adds up. Internet service providers and private industry have attempted limited technical solutions on their own. But that's apparently not enough. Annoyed by the increasing rate and the ever appalling content (unsolicted mail about pornography and mortgages for example), most e-mail users are now calling for legislation to regulate or outlaw spam. A new poll from Harris Interactive indicates that nearly 75% of e-mail users support making spam illegal. In January 2003, when BHI asked computer users whether they would support legislation controlling spam an overwhelming 78% answered in the affirmative. Only 12% said they would oppose such a proposal. NewsLink is the quarterly newsletter of the Beacon Hill Institute for Public Policy Research at Suffolk University. © 1996-2003. All rights reserved. HTML format revised on 7/3/03 12:01 PM