|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
FIGHT BACK AGAINST SPAM
The evolution of anti-spam technology
By Ron Herardian
Unsolicited Commercial email (or UCE or "spam") has been a growing problem for the Internet since the mid 1990s. At that time, the Internet was rapidly becoming commercialized as well as accessible to consumers. Initially perceived merely as a nuisance created by a handful of unethical advertisers, spam currently accounts for the majority of email traffic over the Internet. Spam has a negative impact on the ability of businesses and consumers to benefit from the use of email technology and the Internet, and it poses a serious and growing threat to the reliability, efficiency, and security of corporate electronic messaging systems and the Internet.
Spam not caused by technology
Most of the discussions about spam focus on technology issues. However, the fundamental factors driving the increase in spam are economic. The technology of Internet email is such that the recipient and intermediate service providers pay the vast majority of the cost involved in delivering spam messages.
Analyst firm Ferris Research has estimated that, in 2004, spam cost U.S. companies over $10 billion per year. At the same time, spam represents the least expensive way of advertising to literally millions of businesses and consumers. The cost to spammers of sending millions of email messages over the Internet can be quickly recovered through a small number of sales, thus even if the response rate for spam is extremely low compared with legitimate advertising media, (e.g., 100 sales in response to 10 million email messages), it remains profitable to send spam.
As long as the economics of spam hold true, and as long as it is technologically possible to advertise through spam without being held accountable for the true costs, the volume of spam will certainly continue its increase.
Messaging industry slow to respond
By the late 1990s, spam had become a major problem for Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and businesses. ISPs and enterprises were forced to take steps to stop spam from overwhelming their email servers and flooding computer networks.
Although the problem was widely recognized in the messaging industry, there were relatively few anti-spam tools and technologies. The messaging industry, comprising vendors of email infrastructure software and related products, as well as standards bodies, was slow to respond to the spam problem--having initially underestimated the scale and technical complexity of the spam problem.
In particular, standards bodies such as the Electronic Messaging Association (now the OpenGroup Messaging Forum) and the Internet Engineering Task Forces (IETF) failed to effectively address the spam problem, although the IETF did eventually create the Anti-spam Research Group (ASRG) in 2003.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
-- Advertisement --
AUTOMATE LOTUS NOTES USER ID MANAGEMENT
ID Manager 4.5 from HELP Software provides a new level of automaton for managing Lotus Notes IDs. ID Manager lets Lotus Notes administrators get out of the business of creating and managing user IDs. Use our ROI calculator to see how quickly ID Manager will pay for itself.
Learn more about HELP Software products |
-- Advertisement --
Want The Top Lotus Experts By Your Side Without Paying Hefty Consulting Fees? Look No Further.
Like having a team of consultants by your side -- ones who have all the answers and never make mistakes -- THE VIEW gives you immediate access to field-tested instruction, guidance, and best practices from the brightest Lotus professionals around.
Join your peers who realize their Lotus technology is too important to let people from blogs and forums tell them how they should implement it, run it, and use it. THE VIEW is where only the world's top Lotus experts provide validated support to you on a weekly basis to ensure you work more efficiently, get more out of your Lotus technology, and stay clear of costly mistakes.
Check out the new instruction, tips, and best practices added to THE VIEW this week. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
