May 26, 2004 : Spam Now Makes Up Two-Thirds of Email

📅 May 26, 2004 - Spam continues to saturate the market with the increase in junk mail. Last month, spam made up for more than two-thirds of the 840 million emails scanned by filtering firm MessageLabs (messagelabs.com), according to UK site The Register.

Email traffic sent to the United States, the UK, Germany, Australia and Hong Kong represents more than 97 percent of the global spam volumes filtered by MessageLabs, with the US rating the worst with spam hitting a staggering 83 percent. The figures suggest spammers are mostly targeting English-speaking countries and regions with the highest Internet and email usage.
MessageLabs chief technology officer told The Register that English-speaking countries would always be natural targets for spammers, as mass mailing in a common language is the simplest way to distribute their messages.
While the rise of pharmaceutical spam (40 percent) and financial spam (37.8 percent) continue to rise, rival message filtering firm Clearswift (clearswift.com) reports a decrease in sexually explicit spam (five percent). The majority of spam originates in the US, with Boca Raton, Florida being the junk mail capital of the world.