Stupid Media Watch: Europe, No, Wait! The U.S. Tops Spam List

Of all the lame, lazy assed, time-wasting reporting coming from the mainstream and tech press these days, the prize winners surely have to be the stories regurgitating Internet security firms’ assessments over which “countries” send the most spam.

Sophos yesterday put out a report saying U.S.-based computers relay 21.3% of the world’s spam while machines in Russia relay 8.3%, making it an emerging “superpower.”

“Russia has become a ‘superpower’ of spam e-mail, becoming the second most prolific country after the United States in producing junk e-mails, a computer security firm said Monday,” said a reporter-led-by-the-nose story from wire service AFP.

Message to AFP: Russia and the U.S. are countries not computers. They don’t send e-mail.

In any case, Sophos went on to say in its report that when the world is divided up into continents, computers in Asia relay 32.1% of the world’s spam, making it No. 1.

Rounding out the list, European computers relay 27.1% of the world’s spam; North American computers relay 26.5%; South American computers relay 12.5% and African computers relay 1.1%, the study concluded.

Curiously, computers based in “others,” presumably Australia and Antarctica, were responsible for relaying 0.7% of the world’s spam.

That Antarctica’s number would be low is obvious. But computers in Australia are responsible for less than 1% of the world’s spam? Pshaw.

There are many aspects to these so-called top-spamming country lists that make them incredibly difficult to take seriously. For example, anti-spam group Spamhaus.org maintains a top-10 list of spam relaying countries, which the U.S. always leads, distantly followed by China, Russia and the U.K.

“Countries with the highest number of spammers operating within their networks are usually those with poor or non-existent spam laws,” says copy above the list.

What utter nonsense. That stupid crack is nothing more than a thinly veiled slap at the U.S., and veiled pretty badly at that. Anti-spam zealots absolutely hate the fact that the U.S. federal Can-Spam Act didn’t outlaw opt-out e-mail marketing.

You see, on Planet Anti-Spam, all we have to do is pass an opt-in-based anti-spam law here in the U.S. and all those criminal spammers who are already breaking 42 other laws every time they hit “send” will stop. The miraculous change will occur simply because we passed the magic 43rd piece of legislation outlawing the unsolicited portion of most spammers’ criminal behavior. It’s akin to believing that if we outlaw approaching strangers for money, muggings and burglaries will end.

In any case, Sophos’s report came on the heels of a study by Symantec reporting that Europe is the world’s No. 1 source of spam with 44% of it indicating it had originated from there, versus 35.1% indicating it had originated from North America. Fifteen percent of spam apparently originated from Asia, according to Symantec.

“It should be noted, however, that the nature of spam and its distribution on the Internet presents challenges in identifying the location of the people sending it,” the study said.

Bingo.

Translation: The seemingly never-ending reports on where most spam originates or is relayed are useless. They don’t contribute to the fight against spam or the world body of knowledge one iota. They simply are an easy way for Internet security firms to get headlines—an opportunity they can’t be blamed for capitalizing on—and a way for time-pressed technology reporters to hit the occasional deadline more easily.

At the same time, top-spamming-country reports serve as an excuse for anti-spam zealots to engage in false-cause reasoning and criticize the U.S. for being more commercial e-mail friendly than they’d like.

Think of Spamhaus’s argument this way: Ever notice that computers in the Northern Hemisphere are responsible for by far the vast majority of the world’s spam? Must be those tough anti-spam laws in Paraguay, Botswana, Fiji and East Timor. Oh, and don’t forget the cradle of tough spam-fighting legislation: Swaziland.