jbates@brightok.net (Jack Bates) writes:
While there is a cost to ISPs reguarding spam, the highest cost is still on the recipient. End User's who are outraged by their children getting pornography in email, or having trouble finding their legitimate emails due to the sheer volume of spam that fills their inbox.
yes. lartomatic=# select date(entered),count(*) from spam where date(entered)>now()-'20 days'::interval group by date(entered) order by date(entered) desc; date | count ------------+------- 2003-06-18 | 505 2003-06-17 | 873 2003-06-16 | 644 2003-06-15 | 621 2003-06-14 | 667 2003-06-13 | 396 2003-06-12 | 696 2003-06-11 | 517 2003-06-10 | 673 2003-06-09 | 616 2003-06-08 | 421 2003-06-07 | 398 2003-06-06 | 558 2003-06-05 | 534 2003-06-04 | 616 2003-06-03 | 464 2003-06-02 | 555 2003-06-01 | 677 2003-05-31 | 378 2003-05-30 | 642 (20 rows) that's actually not too bad. the trend is flattening after the Q1'03 surge.
In this day and age, time is often more valuable than money and the assigned value is dependant on the individual. Unfortunately, end user's cannot just highlight and hit delete on spam. They must look at almost every email to verify that it is spam and not a business or personal email. The misleading subject lines and forgeries are making this even more necessary.
let's not lose site of the privacy and property issues, though. even if all spam were accurately marked with "SPAM:" (or "ADV:") in its subject line and there were no false positives, there is no implied right to send it since it still shifts costs toward the recipient(s). all communication should be by mutual consent, and one way or another, some day it will be. -- Paul Vixie