Is Spam Growth Stabilizing?
from the reaching-saturation dept
While the various spam watchers don't agree on how much spam is out there, there is some evidence that the amount of spam may be stabilizing. Of course, that could probably be explained by pointing out that the vast majority of email is clearly spam, and there's only so much higher you can go in terms of percentages. Basically, it sounds much more like spam may have reached a saturation point, rather than any evidence that spammers are giving a second thought to their chosen profession. One interesting trend is that spammers appear to be targeting corporate email accounts more than personal email accounts these days, on the theory that personal ISPs actually have done a decent job with filters -- but corporate IT departments are still a bit behind.
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Maybe people are learning?
Maybe, just maybe, there is another reason for the amount of spam to be stabilizing. Suppose that 0.1% of people respond to spam. There are a lot of people in the world with email accounts and that means a lot of customers. When those customers get ripped off, however, they are less likely to purchase from spam. So, even though the number of people going online is increasing, it is not increasing fast enough to replace the disenchanted people who purchased through spam.
Does this mean a quick end to spam? Hell, no. There are still a lot of dumb people out there and it is going to take time to educate them all, but maybe there is some hope.
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