You will be receiving less junk mail, but a recent study predicts that e-mail will pick up at least some of the slack. Borrell Associates, who conducted the research, said: “Direct mail has begun spiraling into what we believe is a precipitous decline from which it will never fully recover,” I am sure I hear shouting from some of you out there, and no doubt the environmentalists couldn’t be happier. The expectations are that spending on junk mail.jpg)
will “plummet,” while e-mail budgets will “soar.” And that could pose even a bigger problem…significant increases in spam.
I did an article in April about the potential demise of the U.S. Postal Service, and another May 12, both of which focus on the Postal Service’s concentration on junk mail revenue to keep it afloat. A 39 percent decrease in spending on junk mail as Borrell reports is yet another death knell for the USPS. The upside is a much cleaner mailbox, but the downside is less services from your postal person. One great advantage is that the credit card mailers have cut back drastically, thus, less options for identity thieves.
But the elephant in the room is really junk e-mail, or spam, and that is sure to increase in 2009 and in the future. According to anti-spam company, Postini, a division of Google, spam volume is 94 percent of all e-mail. They also report the most recent scam is location-based with the “gullible” e-mail recipient clicking on a link and opening a video, at which time their computer is infected with a virus..jpg)
The year 2008 had its share of spam shakedowns with some biting the dust and others gaining momentum. MaAfee did a trend study that saw the “lonely girl” approach where you are lured into an online discussion fade out, only to be replaced in 2009 by new appeals like pharmacy spam offering Viagra or other meds cheap.
McAfee also predicts for the current year more abuse by spammers of the free web-hosting sites like Geocities and Blogspot, where the investment for access is minimum. Phishing will become more targeted and hit more corporate networks, and the “Home Business” swindle will make a comeback.
Others are expected to rush to replace the Northern California company, McColo, which carried 75 percent of all spam, and was finally shut down in November of 2008. There’s always a helping hand for the con-artists, and this could very well go overseas now. This is obviously the weak link in solving the spam dilemma, and should be addressed on an international basis with the United States and the European Union taking the lead.
TRACElabs has come out with some early 2009 statistics that are interesting. 
Health makes up 71.4 percent of all spam, followed by the sale of products, 21.9 percent. Brazil took over recently from the U.S. as the leading source of spam, followed by Turkey, South Korea and India in the top five. And Europe is the leading continent, followed by Asia, South America, North America, Africa and Oceania.
The moral of this story is, as long as there is a sucker to bite—and isn’t one born every minute?—there will be the scam artists to accommodate their needs. On the other side, it is a vast educational program that is needed to teach online users the basics of dealing with spam. And maybe that’s the job of the Internet Service Providers.
Please send me your comments or e-mail me at: jack.dundiv@cox.net
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