The Costs of Spam

The sheer volume of spam that is mailed out every minute has reached epidemic proportions. There is one simple reason for this, the cost is little and the rewards are excellent. Anyone with a list of addresses and internet access can send out thousands or millions of messages with a click. The cost to others however is now running in the millions of dollars.

Bandwidth
Spam costs everyone valuable internet bandwidth that is used for spam instead of legitimate business or personal use. Bandwidth is the rate at which data is transmitted, particularly the amount that can be transmitted in a specific amount of time. The lower bandwidth rate, the slower information travels.

Think of it as a traffic jam on a major highway, the more spam there is the more delays there are in the transmission of important business information. Internet service providers must then increase bandwidth to handle the larger volume. This is not free and you can guess where the additional cost will end up – on your internet bill.

Viruses, Worms and Malware
Viruses have become commonplace and devastating. Spammers will include viruses and malicious software in the messages they send out disguised as attachments. Some of these viruses will silently install on your machine and give the hacker any vital information stored in your system. Identity theft is perpetrated many times this way.

Viruses are also created with the single purpose of destroying property. Consumer reports recently studied the cost of damage that has been done to computers in this manner. The cost is over eight billion dollars worldwide in the past two years alone. This number does not include costs of anti-spam and virus software that consumers have felt compelled to purchase.

Productivity
While spam is irritating, it also eats up your valuable time just filtering through it to find your real email among all the spam. For businesses that receive hundreds or thousands of important emails daily, the cost in productivity is substantial. Spam calculators, like the one available at cmsconnect.com, estimate the lost time to be nearly 50 hours per employee and almost $1000 per person per year. That is a significant amount of money and time.

Lost Messages and Data
Spam blockers and filters that are supposed to be protecting us from the bad emails often grab legitimate correspondence as well. Even one lost important email from a client or supplier can cost money and relationships.

Identity Theft
The latest in the long line of schemes to bilk you out of your money are phishing frauds. Phishing uses what looks like an official email from a company you do business with. The message will be worded in such a way that the spammer hopes you will input your personal information, thereby allowing them the opportunity to steal your identity and more. This scheme alone has wound up costing victims billions of dollars.

Spam has become a drain on society, at least from an economic and productive standpoint. Everyone but the spammer is paying an extreme amount of money for his or her actions.

Provided by Jim Horton - North Star Strategic IT
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