Top U.S. Export? Survey Says - Spam!   - 2,359 Views, 1 Comment

Yes, that’s right, the spirit of entrepreneurism which made this country so great is alive and well on the Internet…among the spammer community (er..for certain values of “community”).

According to anti-spam software maker Sophos, a full forty-two percent (let Aunty repeat…42%) of all spam sent in the year 2004 originated in the United States.

Wow.

I’m so proud.

That said, in February the figure was nearly 57%! So the percentage of spam which the U.S. has contributed to the world has actually decreased over the course of the year. It’s entirely possible that this is attributable to the passage of CAN-SPAM, and the subsequent taking down of several notorious high-volume email deployers, such as happened in AOL’s lawsuit against spam giant Jeremy Jaynes.

Or it could be because Korea jumped up eight percentage points and is now sending more than 13% of all spam worldwide, while China gained 2 percentage points, and the Netherlands appeared out of nowhere as a 2% contributor as well.

Whatever the case may be, it’s not a record of which to be proud.

Unless, of course, you’re a U.S. spammer.