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Spam on the rise

Date: July 09, 2004
Source: Computer Crime Research Center
By: Timofey Saytarly

Today spam is about 70% of all emails in the world. These data are given by American company MessageLab involved in developing of program-filters.

The volume of spam (basically ads) increased again in April this year. "We believe that its share will reach 80% by mid year", Natasha Staley says, an information security expert for MessageLabs.

Commtouch Software company that develops software to fight spam, has conducted a research with the purpose to clear up which country is a leader in unsolicited mails distribution. It became known during analysis that USA leads with 55,7% of mails that soil mailboxes or companies and individual users all over the globe.

Korea ranks second with 10,2% of spam messages. China is third with 6,6% of spam traffic. Experts explain USA's top place that America has powerful high speed communication.

The US Can-Spam Act, which can into force at the beginning of the year, has been dismissed by experts as ineffectual.

Spammers can adhere to requirements such as providing a legitimate return address without it affecting their business practices.

"The law hasn't had as much of an impact as we hoped. I imagine it will have to be revised as there are wide gapping holes," said Ms Staley.

Despite spam being a global problem, Europe and the US are not singing from the same hymn book when it comes to legislation, said Ms Staley.

A combination of technology, legislation and the work of industry bodies such as Microsoft's idea to charge one pence for all e-mail will all have an impact.

The Can-Spam Act requires people to reply to e-mails in order to stop receiving them, while the EU favours a so-called opt-in clause, meaning individuals have to actively request commercial e-mails.

The fact that much of the spam is generated in the US renders the EU law ineffectual.

In March, AOL joined forces with Earthlink, Microsoft and Yahoo to pursue lawsuits against over a hundred of the worst spammers in the US.

"A combination of technology, legislation and the work of industry bodies such as Microsoft's idea to charge one pence for all e-mail will all have an impact," said Ms Staley.


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