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Instead of slowing the tide of
spam, the unsolicited email that clogs our inboxes, last year's federal
CAN-SPAM act seems to have exacerbated it.
Brightmail Logistics and Operations Center reports that the
amount of spam we receive continues to rise.
In March, 63 percent of all e-mails were spam. In its study,
Brightmail’s Probe Network filtered about 93 billion messages during the
month, and of those 58.6 billion were spam. That was up 1 percent over
February.
Products are the most common thing spammers are trying to
push, with 25 percent of their messages product-related. That number is up
slightly from 24 percent in February.
Financial and adult messages are also on the rise,
accounting for 20 percent and 15 percent of all spam respectively.
Financial rose from 18 percent in February, adult from 14 percent.
There is some good news in all of this. There's less outright
scam spam, or unsolicited emails containing fraudulent come-ons. Scam spam
dropped from 11 percent in February to 7 percent in March.
Yet the sheer volume of fraudulent spam is still huge, 410 million
spam scams in March alone.
Brightmail’s study also reveals that 80 percent of all spam
messages that month were in English, with 60 percent originating from the
United States. China was the No. 2 country of origin but a distant No. 2 at only 6
percent.
Although spam continues to increase, so does awareness among
internet users about which emails are spam and how they handle them. The
majority of 1,000 respondents to an online survey conducted by Applied
Research reported deleting spam before they even open the email, while
nearly half could identify spam by simply looking at the sender’s name.
In other online news, Postini, a provider of email security
services,
reported that of the 4.6 billion messages it processed in March, 61.2 million
contained viruses. That number represents a 6 percent
increase in infected messages over February.
The worm Netsky accounted for most of the infected messages Postini
processed during the month with 51.9 million messages containing the virus.
The viruses MyDoom and Bagle were next on the list, but with considerably
fewer detections. MyDoom accounted for 2.7 million infected messages, Bagle
almost 2 million.
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Top 25
parent companies
Through April 4 |
|
# |
Parent |
Unique Audience (000) |
Reach % |
Time spent per person (hh:mm:ss) |
|
1 |
Microsoft |
58,281 |
52.0 |
0:35:47 |
|
2 |
Time Warner |
51,676 |
46.1 |
1:25:58 |
|
3 |
Yahoo! |
49,700 |
44.4 |
0:44:04 |
|
4 |
Google |
25,745 |
23.0 |
0:08:39 |
|
5 |
eBay |
19,679 |
17.6 |
0:45:31 |
|
6 |
United States Government |
12,801 |
11.4 |
0:11:34 |
|
7 |
RealNetworks |
9,248 |
8.3 |
0:20:39 |
|
8 |
Amazon |
9,093 |
8.1 |
0:09:54 |
|
9 |
Excite Network |
8,811 |
7.9 |
0:13:36 |
|
10 |
InterActiveCorp |
8,615 |
7.7 |
0:13:59 |
|
11 |
Terra Lycos |
7,866 |
7.0 |
0:07:41 |
|
12 |
Landmark Communications |
7,001 |
6.3 |
0:05:29 |
|
13 |
Viacom International |
6,796 |
6.1 |
0:13:07 |
|
14 |
Walt Disney Internet Group |
6,274 |
5.6 |
0:19:02 |
|
15 |
About-Primedia |
6,139 |
5.5 |
0:04:08 |
|
16 |
United Online |
5,926 |
5.3 |
0:58:20 |
|
17 |
EarthLink |
5,699 |
5.1 |
0:28:06 |
|
18 |
Tickle |
5,549 |
5.0 |
0:02:51 |
|
19 |
Claria Corporation |
5,357 |
4.8 |
0:01:06 |
|
20 |
AWS Convergence Technologies |
4,874 |
4.4 |
0:07:52 |
|
21 |
Apple Computer |
4,819 |
4.3 |
0:14:44 |
|
22 |
Electronic Arts |
4,468 |
4.0 |
1:14:17 |
|
23 |
Comcast Corp. |
4,353 |
3.9 |
0:19:41 |
|
24 |
Gannett |
4,336 |
3.9 |
0:08:49 |
|
25 |
News Corp. Online |
4,284 |
3.8 |
0:09:48 |
|
Source: Nielsen//NetRatings |
|
Top 25 brands
Through April 4 |
|
|
Parent |
Unique Audience (000) |
Reach % |
Time spent per person (hh:mm:ss) |
|
1 |
Yahoo! |
48,231 |
43.1 |
0:45:06 |
|
2 |
MSN |
47,637 |
42.5 |
0:34:30 |
|
3 |
AOL |
38,988 |
34.8 |
1:43:04 |
|
4 |
Microsoft |
38,939 |
34.8 |
0:11:20 |
|
5 |
Google |
25,574 |
22.8 |
0:08:35 |
|
6 |
eBay |
19,115 |
17.1 |
0:43:58 |
|
7 |
Real |
9,044 |
8.1 |
0:19:15 |
|
8 |
Amazon |
7,805 |
7.0 |
0:09:40 |
|
9 |
Lycos Network |
7,059 |
6.3 |
0:07:08 |
|
10 |
Weather Channel |
6,841 |
6.1 |
0:05:23 |
|
11 |
Netscape |
6,576 |
5.9 |
0:16:14 |
|
12 |
MapQuest |
5,957 |
5.3 |
0:07:11 |
|
13 |
Tickle |
5,549 |
5.0 |
0:02:51 |
|
14 |
CNN |
5,462 |
4.9 |
0:08:39 |
|
15 |
Gator Network |
5,340 |
4.8 |
0:01:06 |
|
16 |
EarthLink |
4,865 |
4.3 |
0:28:44 |
|
17 |
WeatherBug |
4,841 |
4.3 |
0:07:51 |
|
18 |
Apple |
4,819 |
4.3 |
0:14:44 |
|
19 |
My Way |
4,473 |
4.0 |
0:06:08 |
|
20 |
EA Online |
4,468 |
4.0 |
1:14:17 |
|
21 |
Comcast |
4,346 |
3.9 |
0:19:43 |
|
22 |
Paypal |
3,979 |
3.6 |
0:13:46 |
|
23 |
WhenU |
3,928 |
3.5 |
0:10:27 |
|
24 |
Bank of America |
3,881 |
3.5 |
0:22:29 |
|
25 |
AT&T |
3,858 |
3.4 |
0:18:40 |
|
Source: Nielsen//NetRatings |
|
Top 25 advertisers
(excludes house
ads)
Through April 4 |
|
# |
Company |
Impressions (000) |
|
1 |
AT&T Wireless Services, Inc. |
1,365,181 |
|
2 |
Netflix, Inc. |
665,688 |
|
3 |
InterActiveCorp |
445,973 |
|
4 |
Dell Computer Corporation |
404,172 |
|
5 |
Ameritrade Holding Corporation |
324,766 |
|
6 |
LowerMyBills.com, Inc. |
308,458 |
|
7 |
Fun Web Products |
292,475 |
|
8 |
Classmates Online, Inc. |
286,547 |
|
9 |
Scottrade, Inc. |
281,196 |
|
10 |
MBNA Corporation |
277,019 |
|
11 |
Freeze.com |
269,234 |
|
12 |
YourGiftCards.com |
265,075 |
|
13 |
DaimlerChrysler Corporation |
257,180 |
|
14 |
Apollo Group, Inc. |
241,147 |
|
15 |
Ameriquest Mortgage Company |
238,912 |
|
16 |
Fidelity Investments |
228,342 |
|
17 |
Major League Baseball |
203,151 |
|
18 |
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. |
201,204 |
|
19 |
Weight Watchers International, Inc. |
199,876 |
|
20 |
Sabre Holdings Inc. |
197,231 |
|
21 |
J.C. Penney Company, Inc. |
195,480 |
|
22 |
Monster Worldwide, Inc. |
191,706 |
|
23 |
SBC Communications, Inc. |
187,748 |
|
24 |
MatchNet plc |
185,476 |
|
25 |
Lavalife Inc. |
179,475 |
|
Source: Nielsen//NetRatings AdRelevance |
|
Top 25 advertising sites
(excludes house
ads)
Through April 4 |
|
|
Company |
Impressions (000) |
|
1 |
Yahoo! |
5,034,461 |
|
2 |
MSN |
3,134,214 |
|
3 |
iWon |
867,711 |
|
4 |
eBay |
765,400 |
|
5 |
MSNBC |
406,919 |
|
6 |
CNN |
379,761 |
|
7 |
Excite |
342,861 |
|
8 |
Netscape |
315,709 |
|
9 |
The New York Times |
311,250 |
|
10 |
Juno |
302,232 |
|
11 |
ESPN.com |
300,598 |
|
12 |
NetZero |
290,943 |
|
13 |
The Weather Channel |
290,215 |
|
14 |
AOL.com |
250,758 |
|
15 |
AT&T Worldnet |
245,535 |
|
16 |
EarthLink |
234,146 |
|
17 |
CBS MarketWatch |
200,060 |
|
18 |
MLB.com |
196,774 |
|
19 |
Classmates |
174,499 |
|
20 |
Expedia |
139,091 |
|
21 |
CBS SportsLine |
134,288 |
|
22 |
Realtor.com |
134,240 |
|
23 |
Webshots |
131,373 |
|
24 |
AutoTrader.com |
129,806 |
|
25 |
Pogo |
125,767 |
|
Source: Nielsen//NetRatings AdRelevance |
|
Average use
Through April 4 |
|
|
|
Current Week |
Last Week |
% Change |
|
Sessions/Visits per Person |
10 |
10 |
0.00 |
|
Domains Visited per Person |
23 |
23 |
0.00 |
|
PC Time per Person |
8:08:50 |
8:14:56 |
-1.23 |
|
Active Digital Media Universe |
112,555,297 |
113,390,003 |
-0.74 |
|
Current Digital Media Universe Estimate |
209,517,957 |
209,517,719 |
0.00 |
|
Source: Nielsen//Net Ratings AdRelevance |
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