"Spam Control
- The Internet Without It?"
By Niall Roche
Every single day 30,000,000 emails are
sent around the world. 50% of those emails are spam. Blue chip
companies and even Governments are taking drastic measures in
spam control. The most recent evidence of this is the Canspam
Act which was passed by the US Senate early in 2004.
If you look at what most people used the Internet
for you'll find the vast majority of online activity is sending
and receiving email. Email has become the lifeblood of modern
society. An interesting social experiment would be to see what
happens to a group of young professional people who suddenly have
all means of electronic communication taken away from them. Email
has become as much a part of our lives as the electric lightbulb,
air transport and mobile phones.
What happens if we don't implement spam control
globally? What would happen if all the mail server spam filters
and regulations controlling spam were suddenly abolishesd? Chaos
online! The online world would grind to a screeching halt as email
servers become overloaded with the flood of spam. Global bandwidth
would be consumed by as each spammer sends out hundreds of millions
of junk emails per day.
Without spam control businesses would be crippled.
Critical emails would be lost amongst a deluge of porn, viagra
and breast enlargement type emails.
Without spam control home use of email and the
Internet in general would suffer from massive delays in sending
and receiving of email, a 100x increase in the amount of spam
email received. Internet connection speeds would be adversely
affected with ISPs struggling to keep their servers online while
their bandwidth is being choked by spam.
IT analysts estimate that by 2006 the average
internet user can expect to receive at least 1,500 pieces of spam
per month. This is a conversative estimate. Agressive action is
needed to stem the flood of spam. ISPs supporting spam must have
their assests seized. Spammers must be prosecuted and their equipment
confiscated. If we do not actively work to control spam then we
only have ourselves to blame.
The Internet is a shared resource used by us
all. Spam control must increase and improve in efficiency and
effectiveness for us to retain control of our virtual lives.
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