WildBlueSkies – Trends and strategies in Digital Media

Sure, spam is irritating and frustrating for all of us and it shows no signs of slowing down, but if anyone needed yet another reason for stopping spam, consider this – the annual energy used to transmit, process and filter spam totals 33 billion kilowatt-hours (kwh) – equivalent to the electricity used in 2.4 million US homes—and creating the same greenhouse gas emissions as 3.1 million cars using 2 billion gallons of gasoline, says eMarketer.
As an example, in late 2008, McColo, a major source of spam, was taken offline—and global spam volume dropped 70%. The energy saved in the lull before spammers rebuilt sending capacity was the same as taking 2.2 million cars off the road that day.
Almost 80% of the energy waste created by spam is due to end-users deleting it from their inboxes—or hunting for legitimate e-mail.
The average greenhouse gas emission associated with a single spam message is only 0.3 grams of CO2. Not much—it’s like driving 3 feet. But when multiplied by the yearly volume of spam, it adds up to driving around the planet 1.6 million times.

Related posts:

1. Spam Overshadows Useful Email … By Far
2. The Changing Connotation of “Spam”
3. US Leading SPAM Nation, India At No. 5
4. How Profitable Is Spamming?
5. Spamography

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