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New Scientist Tech - Breaking News - US loses momentum in spam battle

You know this is the truth. It’s a cryin’ shame how bad this has gotten. I was checking out some of the stats on our spamfilter the other day and realized that about 60% of all emails we filter for are spam. Sick isn’t it? Out of that 60%, almost half that number are from the United States, followed by China, Korea & Poland.

Efforts to curb the flood of unwanted emails, or spam, have lost momentum in the US, according to a report released on Monday.

A survey of international sources of spam, conducted by UK internet security firm Sophos, shows that the US still leads the world. It is the source of 23.2% of global spam between April and June in 2006.

The US had been making steady progress in reducing spam since the passage of a 2003 law dubbed CAN-SPAM, which introduced stiffer penalties for spammers. This progress now appears to have stalled.

“US spam has declined every quarter since the inception of CAN-SPAM, until now,” says Ron O’Brien, a senior security analyst with Sophos. “Despite the increase in arrests and significant monetary penalties, it’s clear that the US has more work to do.”

All that wasted internet bandwidth and time taking to clog up the tubes that deliver you valuable content like poker and porn.. hahah. Ahh Ted Stevens, we love ya man.. just don’t ever talk infront of a camera.