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Billions lost each year due to spam

February 02, 2004 12:24 IST

Is your in-box full of unwanted mail? Well, you are not the only one; the entire world and its brother-in-law are facing the same menace.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has sounded alarm bells on the how spam is wreaking havoc and threatening the confidence of Internet users.

The globe pays a very heavy price due to spam: it spreads viruses, steals information, jams computer networks, wastes time and costs Internet users huge hidden sums, says an OECD report prepared for an OECD-European Union.

The report, says The Age, provides some alarming facts and figures on the spam menace:

The report says there is no simple solution to spam, countering Microsoft founder Bill Gates' assertion at Davos in late January that his company would solve the problem within two years, reports The Age.

While many nations, software firms, Internet service providers, direct marketing trade associations, are trying to find ways to tackle the problem through tougher laws, new codes of practice, strong defences and intelligent filters, the problem continues to rise.

The OECD report, says The Age, warns about:

The Age, quoting AAP, reported that the International Data Corporation estimates that there are about 700 million electronic mailboxes in the world, and the total will be 1.2 billion in 2005. Trade data suggests that about 31 billion e-mail messages were sent on Internet in 2002 and that the traffic will exceed 60 billion in 2006.

Research suggests, said The Age, that 90 per cent of viruses are sent via e-mail. In May last year U.S. Internet service provider AOL was blocking 2.37 billion spam messages per day.

Agencies
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