Impact of Email Spam on Businesses and Internet Users
... Computers have revolutionized the way businesses are run and have changed everyday life by facilitating tasks such as word processing, preparing spreadsheets, performing calculations, and organizing data. ... With what is now known as the Internet, it is possible to communicate with people all over the globe. However, as the Internet grew, it became easier to obtain personal information about the users, and problems arose with security. ... Personal information is being sold to businesses, who then use the information to inundate people with unwanted electronic mail (email). The word “spam” was adopted to refer to these unwanted messages that flood into one’s mailbox unsolicited. Email spam has been receiving more attention because it is becoming more of a problem than ever before. Spam is more than a nuisance; it can create severe problems for the recipient. Fortunately the problem is being recognized and addressed, by way of software now available and under development to filter spam before it reaches the user’s mailbox. In addition, legislation has been proposed to regulate and control unsolicited email. What is spam? Spam is defined as mass electronic mailings of the same message to numerous users, where the recipients of the mail have not elected to receive it. There are different types of spam, the most common being commercial advertising, get-rich-quick schemes, and quasi-legal services (Mueller, “What is spam? ... In the cases of commercial advertising, many companies send out mass email or “junk mail” as an advertisement or promotion for the company. ... A company can send an advertisement to thousands of email addresses in a matter of seconds, without having to pay a fee for each mailing. ... Problems Spam can create a variety of problems for the recipient. It causes trouble not only for individual users with personal email accounts, but also for businesses and organizations. Spam is negatively affecting email and the Internet by decreasing the usefulness of this valuable communications tool. Microsoft Associate General Counsel Ira Rubinstein concluded that “‘The risk of inaction and the risk of not combating spam will render this vital communications medium so cluttered with interference that it will no longer be seen as a reliable and efficient communications tool’” (Sturdevant 1). Perhaps one of the most alarming aspects of spam is that the party who ends up bearing most of the cost is usually the recipient. Some people still subscribe to the Internet based on a per-minute rate. Anyone who is on a per-minute Internet access plan is charged for every block of time that they spend connected to the Internet. Spam ends up costing a per minute user, because they are charged for the online time required to open, read and eliminate it. However, users who pay for their Internet services based on a flat rate may suffer financially as well. Since spam utilizes the Internet Service Providers’ (ISP) system resources, flat rate users will eventually absorb this cost via a corresponding price increase (Mueller, “What is spam? ... Spam also causes problems for businesses and organizations. Since businesses and organizations have more email activity than personal email account users, they receive a much larger amount of spam. In fact, on average, a medium sized company receives 20,000 spam messages per day. Five to fifteen percent of corporate mail consists of spam, and this number is expected to grow to upwards of thirty percent in the near future (“Part 9 of 14” 1). This means that personnel must expend time and resources to identify and eradicate all of the unwanted email. ... 5 minutes of their time per day taking care of spam. ... In addition to the organizations’ expenditure of time and money, the email servers become flooded with meaningless messages.