How Much is Spam Costing Your Company?

The total number of email messages is expected to double from 31 billion in 2002 to 60 billion in 2006. With this increase, spam is expected to increase to more than 845 billion messages (or 3,900 per user) over the next five years. This is a substantial increase from the 140 billion estimated pieces of spam email sent in 2001. More troubling is how this increase continues to cost businesses. According to Nucleus Research, spam costs U.S. corporations on average $845 per employee per year.

Here is an example of how much spam is costing a local company of 6 employees. Included in the calculation is lost productivity, set at 30 seconds per spam. While it may only take a few seconds to delete spam, the message may have a virus, install a popup and will most certainly distract you from what you were working on. Find out how much it is costing your company. Go to the ROI calculator.

Look at it this way:

• Companies lose approximately 1.4 percent of each employee's productivity each year due to spam.
• The average employee receives 13.3 spam messages each day.
• Employees spend, on average, 6.5 minutes per day managing spam. (Source: "Spam: The Silent ROI Killer")

Options for fighting spam

If you want to cut down this wasted expense and clean out your inbox, here are some options to control the spam onslaught:

Option #1: Filter unwanted messages before they hit your network

A great way to fight spam is to eliminate it before it hits your company’s network. Inexpensive third party services can screen emails based on source, content, and destination. The most important challenge is letting wanted messages get through and keeping unwanted messages out. You need to pick a filter that has close to no false-positives. (False positive refers to the number of emails that were good, but the system marked as spam.)

Example: The ROI example above is based on Olsen & Associates Public Relations, which has 6 employees receiving roughly 25 spam emails per day. The company started using this type of a filter for its email system and in its first week, the system kicked out 325 unsolicited emails and 14 viruses. Only four of those were actually legitimate emails. Legitimate senders can be added to the execption list, making the filter smarter to let all legitimate email through. The cost savings to Olsen & Associates was $243 last week alone.

Pro: This is an easy solution with zero installation cost and no maintenance. Con: Not cost effective for companies with less than 5 email accounts. You must own or manage your own domain name.

Possible Solution Provider: Erlach Computer Consulting
Cost: Starting at $11.25/month

Option #2: Filter at the network level

There are numerous companies that sell enterprise-level spam filters. These filters are developed to provide industrial-strength network protection for corporations who host mail in house.

Pro: Cost-effective solution for larger corporations. Eliminates the need to install and update anti-spam software on each desktop. Provides IT administrators the tools to lock down and protect all aspects of the corporate email system.

Con: Expensive for smaller companies and email does hit your company's network. You must own and manage your own mail server.

Possible Solution Provider: McAfee, Spam Assassin (Linux)
Cost: Starting at $350 not include staff time and mail server

Option #3: Setup a desktop filter

Most e-mail programs allow you to set up filters that will scan an incoming message's domain name, subject heading, text, and other elements. You can automatically direct any incoming mail containing 'XXX' in the body of the message into a folder called Junk Mail. You can also install a desktop anti-spam filter. These utilities usually come with a large number of filters that move the spam they detect to a special folder immediately. To stay on top of spam changes, the filter will automatically download updates.

Pro: Very inexpensive solution. Ideal for companies with only a few employees.

Con: Each user must individually administer to their filter to keep it current.

Possible Solution Providers: McAfee, Eliminate Spam
Cost: Starting at $30 per user

Additional Options:

• Make sure your Internet Service Provider has a good spam policy. Most Internet Service Providers have policies and procedures to fight spam. Because ISPs are an important line of defense, check to make sure they are actively combating spammers. Spammers constantly change their techniques and your ISP needs to stay aware of these changes. Specifically, find out how they guard against these sneaky techniques.
• Use a disposable e-mail address. Create an e-mail address specifically designed for online purchases, subscriptions and discussions forums. Never use your primary e-mail address. Establishing a disposable e-mail address can be done through your ISP or an e-mail provider. Yahoo! and Hotmail have set up easy services to establish disposable e-mail addresses.
• Change your email address. As a last ditch effort, you can change your email address. While this can be impractical for your business, you are guaranteed to eliminate all spam. (At least for now!)