Spam Is On The Decline!

Finally it appears that spam is soon to become a thing of the past.

Great news! Your inbox may be about to get a whole lot more relevant. If you’re sick of receiving “legitimate” – or in other words, entirely fraudulent – correspondence from malicious forces online then you’ll be happy to hear the news that spam is on the decline.

According to research from Kapersky Labs, the spam heyday was back in 2008, almost a decade ago. It’s been a long road to reach this point, but research now shows that 80% of our mailboxes are now legitimate emails, compared to a dismal 50 / 50 split between spam and legitimate correspondence in 2008.

So why has spam been on the downturn?

In the early days of the internet it was hard to identify spam email. Email technology was so new that many webizens simply weren’t aware of cyber crime, and hence assumed all messages that reached their inboxes were legitimate. Spam was seen as a fad during the early noughties, with even Bill Gates himself describing it as such in 2004. Unfortunately as we have mentioned above spam continued to clog up our inboxes and reached its peak in 2008, so it comes as welcome news to everyone who has received a false email that progress has been made to cleanse our webmail inboxes.

There are three primary reasons for the decline in spam:

• Higher quality spam filters. We ourselves have wisened up to spamming techniques, and many of us can now determine when an email seems suspicious. In addition to our own growing awareness of spam, the filters provided by our webmail providers have become more intelligent. Now many of us won’t see spam in our central inboxes as it is indexed by email providers before reaching its destination.
• Anti-spam legislation. All entities who distribute emails to their customer base are now governed by much stricter laws than ever before. All email campaigns must meet a set of criteria to avoid being marked as spam, and thankfully it’s in the interest of all businesses to meet these guidelines and avoid being marked as spam and diverted to our spam inboxes.
• Digital disruption and evolving technologies. As technology evolves issues such as phishing via spam email are becoming less and less prevalent due to the increased intelligence of technology. In the early days of the internet – when spam was at its most damaging – anti-spam technology and the ability to enforce anti-spam laws were limited. Now that email technology is reaching its maturity, our email systems have never been more intelligent; they can identify and block spam in transit, leading to an ultimate decline.

While this decline in spam is a certain cause for celebration, we are still a long way from the complete eradication of spam. As is the nature of the internet the bad comes with the good, but this decline in fraudulent email is a sign that we are heading towards a safer internet, and moreover one we can trust.

For all businesses corresponding with their email bases, be sure to follow all guidelines to ensure your email campaigns aren’t deemed a nuisance or – even worse – harmful. Once your email address is blacklisted it is difficult to redeem your reputation, and you’ll lose the valuable direct channel between your business and your customers.

With every domain name from UK2 you’ll receive a free email address. Take advantage of the renewed trust in email this decline in spam is likely to glean, and get some campaigns out to your customer base. Register your domain name over on our website at our domain name registration page.