Spam on the rise

Well, here’s another reason to abandon email:

In fact, there’s twice as much spam now as opposed to this time last year. And the messages themselves are causing more trouble. About half of all spam sent now is “image spam,” containing server-clogging pictures that are up to 10 times the size of traditional text spam. And most image spam is stock-related, pump-and-dump scams which can harm investors who don’t even use e-mail. About one-third of all spam is stock spam now.

The sheer quantity of spam is overwhelming. According to the same article:

There are 62 billion spam messages sent every day, IronPort says, up from 31 billion last year. Now, spam accounts for three of every four e-mails sent, according to another anti-spam firm, MessageLabs.

It is sad that the closing paragraph title of the article is even necessary:

‘Never invest based on spam’

You would think most people would be more critical consumers of information (including email) than to fall for email spam encouraging stock investing, but apparently not– otherwise a large percentage of spammers (according to the same article) would be out of business.

As I related back in December, dealing with email continues to be a big challenge for me– and the issue is not just related to spam. I certainly have noticed more spam getting through my Yahoo mail bulk mail filter (which is generally pretty good) as well as the junk mail filter built into Apple’s Mail application. I have decided that part of the solution, which I’ve to date done a poor job of doing, is dedicating at least a minimum fixed amount of time EVERY DAY to going through my personal email. Work email is another matter, I am able to keep up with that, but personal email continues to be a challenge. I feel like I need a one day workshop on email management techniques. I have lots of mail rule filters setup and I think I know the technical ways to deal with email, including spam– for me the challenge is giving up time that I’d rather spend on other tasks than wading through lots of messages.

The bottom line here is NOT to get the idea that you should ever email me– please do if you really want to. Blog comments, instant messages and phone calls are really my favored means of digital communication right now, however. (If you can call a phone call “digital communication,” I guess.) I certainly have received some wonderful speaking offers via email in the last six months, so I am NOT going to abandon email, but I will likely continue to struggle on with the same TIME issues.

Link via Virginia Postrel.

Technorati Tags: spam

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