Spam: it's what's for dinner, and email too!

The following is an investigative research article I wrote this semester at SJSU.

There comes a time when enough is enough.

If you’re like most people you start the morning the same pretty much every day. The alarm goes off, way too early, and maybe you’ll hit the snooze button a few times, until you’re way too late. You’ll hop in the shower and try not to fall back asleep with the warm water running on your face. You get dressed way to quickly, run to the kitchen and pour a cup of coffee, grab an apple if you’re lucky, then head out the door to work. You make it just on time, and being the great employee you are, you greet everyone with a smile - even though you may not feel as cheery as you act, after all, you’re at work. But nonetheless, you decide to get this day up and running. You’re at your desk, not the best desk in the office, but you like it because it’s yours, not anyone else's. You sign on to the computer and pull up your email, anxiously awaiting all the goodies you might find. Eighty new emails?! “Amazing,” you think to yourself, “I can already tell this is going to be a great day.” Not quite. You begin reading down the list of emails: Debt Consolidation, Gambling, Male Enhancement Pills, BAD CREDIT OK! You immediately slump down in disappointment, and begin tediously sorting through all your junk mail, adding yet another mundane thing to your already monotonous day.

A recent article in Technology & Society Magazine cites a study by Spamhaus saying over 75% of emails received by businesses and civilians alike are spam. This number is staggering. What’s to keep this number from growing even more? The answer, according to this same study, is not a whole lot. They estimate by the year 2015 spam will exceed 95% percent of all email traffic, projecting that many users will simply delete their email accounts in frustration.

This has the potential of being a huge problem. Think of how far we’ve come since the days of “snail mail,” as it has come to be called. Even the United States Postal Service is beginning to realize the future may not be too kind to old fashioned mail, and yet still acknowledges the internet’s advantages. Stephanie Sanborn of CNN had a chat with deputy postmaster general John Nolan just a few years back. “In that sense, we’re ready for the Internet to be a disruptive technology and completely disrupt our normal volumes. How much and to what extent remain to be seen. But it’s also a supportive technology; we see tremendous opportunities in being able to reach more customers in a much richer fashion through the internet,” Nolan said.

This is not to say many haven’t tried inventing ways to counteract spam. In fact, it has become a giant business in the United States. Fighting Spam for Dummies, Block It!, McAfee Spamkiller, Zero Spam, and Degunking Your Email are just a few of the many software and do-it-yourself programs out there profiting from this whole spam epidemic.

Without any mainstream alternatives to using email, however, many businesses and their employees are forced to dredge through spam for a good percentage of their workday, cutting productivity as well as profits. With as much as a three percent reduction in efficiency due to spam, many companies feel the brunt of this growing problem.

“Sometimes I’ll waste hours trying to figure out which emails are junk and which aren’t, I’m so sick of it,” says Eddie Daroza, senior editor of theRADreport.com.

In addition to simply wasting time, spam brings along with it many hidden problems, including viruses and identity theft. In the June 2006 issue of Telephony Magazine, Tim McElligott reported on a recent study conducted by Ferris Research. The study found the average cost to repair a system infected with a common virus is $200. With many new computers costing less than a thousand dollars, this $200 mark becomes a huge percentage of the computer’s initial value, equivalent to six thousand dollars in repairs on a moderately priced vehicle. Additionally, as of this year, the study said it’s easier than ever for your computer to contract a virus, with at least 14 new viruses entering the market every day.

Some companies are even taking jabs at the PC industry for not being more proactive about the onslaught of unwanted viruses through spam. Apple Computer’s comedic Get A Mac advertising campaign, directed by Phil Morrison, takes a unique approach by personifying the issue. Actors Justin Long of Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story and John Hodgman of John Stewart’s The Daily Show interact with each other as “Mac and PC.” One specific ad mentions the over 114,000 known viruses for PCs; Macs have none.

In a recent issue of PC Magazine, Larry Seltzer reports on a movie file found on social-site MySpace that can cause adverse affects to a users computer, proving that spam can hit you anywhere.

Another growing issue through spam is identity theft. According to the Federal Trade Commission, identity theft is any occurrence of stolen personal information used to commit fraud. Back in 2004, The CPA Journal’s Vinita M. Ramaswamy detailed just how large this problem really is, known as the fastest-growing crime in the United States. Citing an FTC report, Vinita said around 9.3 million people become victims, businesses lose over $52 billion, and almost 300 million hours are lost each year due to identity theft.

“Someone figured out my online banking information and emptied my entire savings account. I could barely stop crying when I found out,” said Laura Benevento, a San Jose State Student. With over 13 affected people per minute, the issue of stolen identity shows no signs of backing down.

In an article on MSNBC last month, senior producer Tony Maciulis said some spammers this season are even targeting the children with a “Letter from Santa.” It seems there’s just no limit to how far these people will go.

“I kept getting so much crap that I just deleted my email account and opened a GMail account,” said Desiree Miller, a local restaurant employee. GMail, created by search-engine giant Google, prides itself on an invite-only user base and as an alternative that receives much less junk than most other free services.

We always hear people talking about the “good ol’ days.” They tell us about how things used to be so much simpler, and how much more relaxed people were. Well, with billions of dollars flushed down the toilet every year because of spam, not to mention countless headaches, it’s pretty hard to disagree.