How big is the Spam problem?

To start by showing my hand, I really dislike Spam. I could live without offers of pirate software, contact from someone pretending to be a young Russian woman, offers of all sorts of pills and potions and of course, the enhancements to my anatomy. 

My guess is that there must be a return on their effort - in other words enough people must click-through to make spam worthwhile.

On one level they are a nuisance, but if there are enough spam emails, they are clogging your Internet connection. So, are there enough? 

Here is real data from a Spam Filter here in Australia - you decide.

Total Emails received = 9.5 million

"Genuine" Emails = 2 million

Spam Emails = 7.5 million

This means more than 80% of the email arriving at this domain is spam. 

Having an absolute fix for spam is difficult, as it involves technical and legal remedies. That said,  I notice that Spam Filters are now doing a great job. For example, I have a Hotmail account and the Spam arriving in my inbox is zero. If more and more spam is blocked, then hopefully, the sources will diminish. 

Microsoft Results - the more things change.......

In my last post, I commented on the challenges that Microsoft are facing to their dominance in the desktop productivity space.

Well, at the moment those challenges are not making an impact - judging by Microsoft's recent results. Growth in Vista revenue, and great growth in Office revenue. While positive, this is only a 90-day period, so I will watch with interest over the coming quarters.

On another note, the investment by Microsoft in Facebook shows that they understand what is happening on the Web, and how to be part of it.