America Online Reports Drop in Spam

The New York Times ^ | 12/27/04 | The Associated Press

[The Teen Conservative]

America Online Reports Drop in Spam By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: December 28, 2004

America Online said yesterday that spammers were starting to give up - at least when it came to sending junk to its subscribers.

The total number of e-mail messages destined for members averaged 1.6 billion in November a day, down from 2.1 billion daily a year earlier, the company said.

The drop was almost entirely in spam, AOL said.

A company spokesman, Nicholas Graham, attributed the drop largely to spammers moving on after realizing that many of their messages would not get through AOL's antispam filters or that they might get sued for trying.

During the same period, the number of spam complaints from members dropped more than 75 percent, after adjusting for a decline in subscribers.

AOL had 22.7 million subscribers in the United States as of September, compared with 24.7 million a year earlier, according to the latest regulatory filings by its parent, Time Warner.

AOL also has seen declines in spam messages deleted at AOL's gateways as well as those diverted to spam folders by filters under the control of AOL members.

Officials at Yahoo, EarthLink and Microsoft did not respond yesterday to requests for statistics for their services.

[mtbopfuyn]

Oh, really? I haven't seen a decrease.

[Drango]

The total number of e-mail messages destined for members averaged 1.6 billion in November a day

Oh OK...1.6 billion a day is fine.

[The Teen Conservative]

Lol.

I don't use AOL (anymore), but its nice to see spammers getting the picture.

[RightWhale]

There is as much spam as ever, but unless spammers are getting results they won't continue forever. If everybody deleted their spam, the spamming would cease.

[Indy Pendance]

Is this related to a drop in number of users perhaps?

[umgud]

I use AOL, but get almost zero spam. I have lately gotten a few unwanted IM's from people I don't know, to which I didn't respond.

[Aunt Polgara]

Is this related to a drop in number of users perhaps?

Well, they are going to have a lot fewer if I have anything to say about it. I am in charge of sending out a weekly political newsletter to members of an organization I belong to. We have about 1,500 AOL subscribers on the list, and it's absolutely wretched trying to get AOL to let our mail go through.

I am going to go on a rampage to get our members to switch ISP's.

[Delta 21]

Believe what you want! HA HA

[Indy Pendance]

Why anyone uses aol is beyond my comprehension. I think I tried a free disk that came in a box of Wheeties once about 15 years ago. What a pita that outfit is.

[KneelBeforeZod]

Officials at Yahoo, EarthLink and Microsoft did not respond yesterday to requests for statistics for their services.

I've seen a HUGE increase in spam since about dec 15 on earthlink... I was begining to wonder if they were letting it thru so people would download their package with "web accelerator" and anti spam tools... (which I wont)

[KneelBeforeZod]

ooh those garde manger skills sure dress up the Spam in that old ad...

[Aunt Polgara]

I sure don't know why anyone would use AOL, but I have to do tech support for our members, and AOL drives me crazy, especially since it doesn't automatically copy the email you are responding to into the current email. I correspond with hundreds of people, and I often have to go fishing through my "sent mail" folder to try to figure out what they are talking about. :-(

[Cobra64]

Too bad their servers are crap. And they have more stooooopid bullsh!t overhead with their Mickey Mouse dopey advertisements. The company must be run by the X-generation MTV crowd.

The only reason I deal with these a$$holes is because I travel a LOT, and they have local dial-up numbers all over the world.

[Petronski]

Hmmm. I got 500 million more messages per day in November than October. I wonder if that's a coincidence.

[Indy Pendance]

If you are really popular, tell your users you won't work with aol subscribers any longer. I know, sometimes you can't, but it sounds really nice. Goodluck!

[Cobra64]

What the hell is IM (sarcasm). I turned that crap off years ago. It's for kiddies, not for business men.

[Aunt Polgara]

Earthlink also drives me crazy. When people set up their anti-spam filters so only their preferred list can get through, they often forget to add me to their list... so they send me an email which Earthlink won't let me respond to.

The only good way to deal with spam is to have several email addresses. Give one to close friends and family... give one to political distribution lists (or other preferred senders) that you want to see... give the last one to anyone who asks.

Then set up your inbox so it automatically sorts the email into separate folders. Then you decide what you want to look at. If something comes into your "family and friends" folder, you can look at it immediately. If it comes into the distribution lists folder, look at it when you are in the mood. If it comes into the "anybody" folder, glance at it occasionally, and flush regularly.

[The Teen Conservative]

You also wonder if the making of that actual product of SPAM has gone down due to the rise of the Internet and thus the Internet SPAM, or if people get curious as to why its named after what its named after and they go buy it...

[umgud]

I've never used an IM and have recieved so few that I wasn't even aware you could turn them off, which I will now look into. Hell, the closest I've ever to chatting, is what I'm doing right now.