Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
The rise of spam corresponds with the transformation of the Internet from a noncom-
mercial academic and research enterprise into a commercial global network. Early spam
messages provoked Internet users and generated big headlines. For example, in 1994
Phoenix lawyers Laurence Canter and Martha Siegel sent an email advertising their im-
migration services to more than 9,000 electronic newsgroups. Canter and Siegel received
tens of thousands of responses from outraged newsgroup users who did not appreciate
seeing an off-topic, commercial message. The
New York Times
reported the incident with
the headline, “An Ad (Gasp!) in Cyberspace.” Canter and Siegel were undeterred. Their
ad was successful in bringing them new clients. “We will definitely advertise on the Web
again," Canter said. “I'm sure other businesses will be advertising on the network in the
very near future” [8].
As recently as 2000, spam accounted for only about 8 percent of all email. It was still
viewed as a problem for individuals managing their mailboxes. By 2009 about 90 percent
of all emails were spam (Figure 3.2) [9]. Today spam consumes a large percentage of the
Internet's bandwidth and huge amounts of storage space on mail servers and individual
computers. The cost to businesses is estimated at billions of dollars per year in wasted
productivity.
The volume of spam is so large because spam is effective. The principal advantage
of spam is its low cost compared to other forms of advertising. For between $500 and
$2,000, a company can send an advertisement to a million different email addresses.
Sending the same advertisement to a million addresses using the US Postal Service costs
at least $40,000 for the mailing list and $190,000 for bulk-rate postage. And that doesn't
include the cost of the brochures! In other words, an email advertisement is more than
100 times cheaper than a traditional flyer sent out in the mail. The cost is so low that a
200
180
160
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
Spam
Not spam
2000
2009
FIGURE 3.2
The increase in spam between 2000 and 2009. In 2000 spam accounted for 8
percent of all email. By 2009 the volume of email had increased 20-fold, and about 90 percent
of email messages were spam.
