Third of spam is porn

Growing problem

By Tim Richardson • Get more from this author

Posted in Music and Media, 23rd August 2002 11:44 GMT

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Spam - the scourge of email - is in the news at the mo.

Earlier this week MP Derek Wyatt called on ISPs to be more responsible for XXX spam appearing in people's inboxes.

This came on top of a report from messaging firm, Nexor, that the amount of porn spam is growing by 20 per cent a year.

Now anti-spam outfit, Brightmail, has taken a snapshot of all the spam it intercepted over a 24 hour period from 20-21 August. The findings make interesting reading.

Around 55 per cent of all the spam it came across related to money, including how to reduce debt, get rich quick schemes and gambling giveaways.

The second biggest group was porn - accounting for around 30 per cent of all spam received during the 24 hour period.

Curiously, for the whole of July Brightmail found that only 8 per cent of spam was porn-based. Whether this is just a blip or a sign of the growing amount of porn-related spam remains to be seen.

Moving on, some 10 per cent of spam was health-related, with the rest dealing in all sorts of odds and sods.

Guess that would include all those emails I get asking if I'd like to buy diesel engines, industrial amounts of stainless steel, oh, and most recently, nylon and polyester for "jacket, sport wear and pant" direct from a sweatshop for a snip at 32 cents a yard. ®