Spam

Spam
9 out of 10 email messages sent worldwide are spam (Source : Reuters )

On a personal note, today I cleared all (100%)of the mails in my private email inbox. Everytime the spammers come out with new spam attacks, I update the message rules to trash the messages that include those keywords. The emails filled my inbox with offers to buy drugs and other medicinal aids. I am also advised to buy cheap, penny stocks which I have not heard of. Of late I get the 'Hi' messages.

What is Spam?
Spam is commercial email or unsolicited bulk email, including “junk mail”, which has not been requested by the recipient. It is intrusive and often irrelevant or offensive, and it wastes valuable resources.

Spam messages are the opposite of permission-based email, which are normally anticipated, personal, relevant and/or associated with a pre-existing business or personal relationship. Inappropriate newsgroup activities, consisting of excessive posting of the same materials to several newsgroups, are also deemed to be spam.

I'm not sure whether the recent advise from the Malaysian Pharmaceutical Society to Malaysians buy drugs online at your own risk, has anything to do with the deluge of spam emails that Malaysian internet users receive over the last few months. I guess, if you receive many mails on the same topic, one will be sucked into being interested in what they have to offer.

According to an EU Commission, some EU countries have sucessfully reduced spam mails. Examples are Netherlands which has cut locally generated spam by 85 percent since 2003; and Finland which has reduced spam to 30 percent of emails received, down from 80 percent in 2003.

More effort need to be done to combat this menace!