Hi Folks, Someone on the cybertelecom list raised a question about the real costs of handling spam (see below) in terms of computer resources, transmission, etc. This dovetailed a discussion I had recently with several former BBN colleagues - where someone pointed out that email is not a very high percentage of total internet traffic, compared to all the multimedia and video floating around these days. Since a lot of the arguments about spam hinge on the various costs it imposes on ISPs, it seems like it would be a good thing to get a handle on quantitative data. It occurs to me that a lot of people on this list might have that sort of quantitative data - so... any comments? Regards, Miles Fidelman ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2003 09:15:08 -0400 From: Timothy Denton <tim@TMDENTON.COM> Reply-To: Telecom Regulation & the Internet <CYBERTELECOM-L@LISTSERV.AOL.COM> To: CYBERTELECOM-L@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Subject: Issue: the Volume of unwanted email Cybertelecomers: I want the advice and knowledge of people on this list. I dared not use the word spam lest I be filtered out, but the issue is the economic cost of spam for ISPs. There has been much to-do about spam of late. Figures from Canarie show that SMTP transmissions account for about .5% of the volume of Internet traffic. This may be typical of backbone networks, or not. Commercial networks are jealous of revealing information of this nature. ISPs report that spam is now about 46% of email, and that it adds to the cost of transmissions because of the extra machines that have to be bought and operated. Question: What is the economic cost of handling all this spam, in terms of additional boxes, software, transmission costs etc? I am aware that spam adds large costs in terms of time and attention at the user end. Is there evidence of what it adds in terms of hardware and software? As we head toward legislative remedies in the US and Canada, I would like to have a better idea of the economic impact of spam. Timothy Denton, BA,BCL 37 Heney Street Ottawa, Ontario Canada K1N 5V6 www.tmdenton.com 1-613-789-5397 tmdenton@magma.ca