Back in April, internet security firm McAfee launched an experiment in which it challenged people in various countries to spend one month attempting to collect as much spam as possible, by bandying their email address about with gay abandon, replying to spam emails, clicking on links within said emails, and generally behaving in a way that would be alien to any security-conscious "netizen".
McAfee released the results of this experiment last Tuesday to gasps of amazement at the deluge of junk mail that can splurge forth when you lower your guard. But I was just surprised that the results weren't a whole lot worse.
According to McAfee, each volunteer saw an average of 70 spam messages arrive in their inbox each day. One participant, a 40-year old British software developer by the name of Simon, collected 7,084 messages over the 30 days – between 3 and 4 times the average. But I don't think even Simon was trying hard enough – despite the fact that McAfee gave each volunteer a free PC for their trouble.
An anti-spam company called ClearMyMail put out a piece of research towards the end of last week, where they revealed their top five most-spammed customers; a workshop foreman for Stagecoach buses by the name of Colin Wells heads that list, with more than 44,000 emails blocked every DAY – some 630 times greater than the measly efforts of McAfee's spam volunteers. And Colin wasn't even trying.
A little email tennis with ClearMyMail reveals that their average spamload per customer per day is 350 – and although poor old Colin carries some responsibility for dragging that figure up, it's still five times more than the supposedly shocking figures that emerged from the McAfee experiment. Can any readers beat 350?
CONFUSED ABOUT TECHNOLOGY? SUBMIT YOUR QUERIES TO CYBERCLINIC USING THE COMMENT FORM BELOW, OR EMAIL QUESTIONS HERE.
Haha, great story, can't believe that guy gets so many spam emails - I thought I was unlucky with 10 a day!
Posted by: Danny Stanton | Thursday, 10 July 2008 at 09:56 AM
Can't believe that poor guy gets so much spam! I've had my own events company for a few years and my inbox is constantly full of junk (not quite that many though!). Good to know there's things out there to stop this from happening!
Posted by: Sarah Powell | Thursday, 10 July 2008 at 06:50 PM
Very good story. I've never gotten so many spam emails, I feel sorry for that poor guy!
Joey - http://www.leetwebmasters.com
Posted by: Joey | Thursday, 10 July 2008 at 09:06 PM
I don't get 350, but I get more than 70. It doesn't matter how profligate you are, it takes years to build up a heavy spam load. It also helps if you have more than one email address and even better if you own domains with things like webmaster or info pointed at your address. I used to get more but I deleted the old addresses that got the most and shut off all my catchalls.
Posted by: Marysia | Thursday, 10 July 2008 at 09:12 PM