Spam is the mosquito of the Internet; a pesky nuisance that will seemingly never go away, and according to a study from IDC it is only going to become worse.
2007: The Year Of The Spam
The IDC is predicting that around 97 billion emails will be sent in 2007, and out of those 40 billion will be spam messages. This year will mark the first time in history that spam email volumes will exceed person-to-person email volumes sent worldwide.
“Spam volumes are growing faster than expected due to the success of image-based spam in bypassing antispam filters and of email sender identity spoofing in getting higher response rates,” said Mark Levitt, program vice president for IDC’s Collaborative Computing and Enterprise Workplace research.
“Instant messaging, joined by free and low-cost VoIP calling, will result in slower email growth, especially among teens and young adults.”
Not everyone agrees that email growth will slow. “E-mail is as mission-critical as it’s ever been,” Andrew Jaquith, a senior analyst with the Yankee Group, told TechNewsWorld. “If anything, it’s becoming even more entwined with the way we work.”
He also doesn’t see email losing its overall usefulness. “But I don’t think it has decreased the attractiveness of e-mail,” he said. “We haven’t gotten to the point, from what I’ve seen from my clients, where spam has become so overbearing that they want to switch and use something else.”
Even if IDC’s projections are correct, email users will probably not notice a major spike in spam as long as their filters continue to block the unwanted messages.
