Tech Watch | InfoWorld Staff » Got Spam? It probably came from the U.S.

December 28, 2004 | Comments: (0)

Got Spam? It probably came from the U.S.

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The United States topped the list of spam-sending countries in 2004, according to a list produced by anti-spam and anti-virus software company Sophos.

Almost half of all spam e-mail messages sent in 2004, roughly 42 percent, came from the United States, Sophos researchers said.

Sophos compiled the list of the top twelve spam producing countries by scanning all spam messages received at its worldwide network of honeypots during 2004. In a distant second to the U.S. was South Korea, with an estimated 13.43 percent.

The United States also claimed the spam-sending crown when Sophos' first list was released in February of this year. In that tally the U.S. was responsible for a whopping 56.74 percent of unsolicited e-mail barrages. But that was before the CAN-SPAM law, which went into effect in January of 2004, could have shown much progress.

CAN-SPAM has had a year to prove its worth, and is now largely viewed as be ineffective, as the latest Sophos list and statistics from other vendors such as Postini and MX Logic show.

IDG News Service reporter Grant Gross wrote a story this week looking at CAN-SPAM and the view isn't pretty. One of the biggest criticisms is that the legislation forces recipients of unwanted e-mail to opt-out of receiving spam by contacting each sender, rather than requiring spammers to receive opt-in permission.

Posted by Cathleen Moore on December 28, 2004 04:07 PM

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