Spam will die out in three years

Unsolicited email is an issue which affects us all - but there is light at the end of the tunnel for users inundated with spam.

Spam currently accounts for around 50 per cent of all email traffic worldwide and while it looks set to get a lot worse before it gets better, Enrique Salem, CEO of anti-spam vendor Brightmail, believes within three years that figure will be down to around five per cent.

"I think the level of spam may get as high as 65 per cent of all email before this starts turning around but I don't think it will get any higher than that," he said. "And while I don't think we will ever see spam disappear altogether I think it will drop so low as to be a non-issue.

"I expect to see levels of spam falling through 2004, 2005 and by 2006 I expect to see spam levels certainly sub-10, probably even sub-five per cent of email traffic."

While Salem's claims are bold, the fact that his company is filtering 10 per cent of the world's email makes him better positioned than most to make such pronouncements. However, how we get to this situation is a more complex issue.

As with most involved in the war on spam Salem is not expecting a tightening of legislation to prove to be the key to killing spam. Legislation may keep legitimate marketers in line but that's as far as it goes.

"The bottom line is that laws can serve as a deterrent and I think many marketers will start complying," he said. "But a lot of spam can hide its identity - being sent through open relay or spoofing domains to disguise its identity."

The anonymity afforded by such approaches provides unscrupulous spammers with the confidence to continue.

Rather than relying upon policy, Salem talks about a need for "economic disincentive" to be placed upon spammers if they are ever to be beaten. In a nutshell this means making it no longer profitable for people to employ any kind of direct marketing.

Key to this will be the implementation of technology, according to Salem. "We have to do a better job of filtering email. If we can ensure that response rates [to spam emails] fall far enough then we will start to see the number of people spamming drop."

"There are currently a lot of spammers who are probably just about making a living," he added. "It wouldn't take much of a reduction in response rates to put them out of business."

And there aren't many internet users who would lose too much sleep over their plight.