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• Despite new laws and regulations, the proportion of spam compared to total email remained consistently high—between 75% and 80% throughout 2004 as reported by a leading third party spam protection company, Postini.

• In 1998, top world-wide sellers through third quarter of personal computers listed Compaq, with 13.1% of sales, Dell with 9.5%, and HP with 6%. Top world-wide sellers through third quarter of 2004 were Dell with 19%, then HP with 15.6%, as reported by the February 10, 2005 issue of The Wall Street Journal.

• The February 10, 2005 issue of The Wall Street Journal reported that HP had 27% of the server sales through third quarter of 2004, compared to IBM, who had 31% of the sales of servers.

• The printing and imaging unit of the computer company, HP, accounts for 75% of the company’s profits, largely from the mundane business of selling ink cartridges as reported in the February 10, 2005 issue of The Wall Street Journal.

• Throughout 2004, smaller companies such as those with 100 users or less received up to 10 times more spam per user than large companies (10,000 users or more).

• In 2004, different types of organizations received different amounts of spam. The publishing industry, for example, leads with more spam per user than any other industry.

• Virus infected emails were more widespread, encompassing 1.5% (about 1 in 67) of all emails in 2004. This is significantly higher than in 2003 when .5% (1 in 200) of emails were infected.

• Apple Computer, Inc. sold more than 4.5 million iPods during the quarter, which ended Dec. 25, 2004, compared with the 5.7 million iPods it had sold in all the years before then. The iPod now accounts for 35% of Apple’s total revenue, compared with about 13% a year ago as reported in the February 14, 2005 issue of the Wall Street Journal.

• In 2004, viruses significantly increased the propagation of spam through highjacked computers (known as zombies) that unknowingly serve as conduits for spreading spam.

• The CAN-SPAM Act went in to effect on January 1, 2004 in the U.S. and did not demonstrate any significant impact in decreasing spam during 2004.

• Microsoft, America Online, Earthlink, and Yahoo! filed the first major industry lawsuits under the CAN-SPAM Act in March 2004. The lawsuits named hundreds of defendants, with more than 90 percent of them identified only as "John Doe."

• In 1995, the average household spent $32.78 a month on long distance. Now, it is $13.70, according to TNS Telecoms, a Jenkintown, PA., market-research firm.

• High speed Internet service is widely available, but there remain pockets where it isn’t an option. Broadband (aka: high speed Internet) was available in 94% of the nations ZIP codes by July 2004, and 81% of ZIP codes had more than one provider, according to the Federal Communications Commission. But only 5% of towns with fewer than 10,000 residents had broadband access, according to an October 2003 report from the Center for the Study of Rural America.

• Nucleus Research puts the typical cost per employee to fight spam in 2004 at $1,934-more than double the amount in 2003. Productivity lost also climbed from 1.4% in 2003 to 3.1% in 2004, according to Nucleus.
 

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