The business of spam – unsolicited commercial e-mail – is making money, but not just for those sending it. Wired News has counted no less than 150 suppliers of anti-spam products and services. It cites research from the Radicati Group that estimates this anti-spam market's revenue at $653 million for 2003, rising to $2.4 billion by 2007.
By contrast, the senders of the ads for enlargement pills and get-rich-quick scams that created this defence market will earn between $11 million and $111 million this year.
Human nature being what it is, the anti-spam companies must hold some hope that their opponents will long continue to put up a fight. Spammers going out of business presents the anti-spam market with a threat. So there could be some nervousness over lone-crusader Nigel Featherston's success this week.
Featherston sued two prominent spammers, Charles Childs and Linda Lightfoot, also known as Linda Beasley, after he received thousands of angry e-mails in reply to spam sent by Childs and Lightfoot using Featherston's e-mail address as the purported sender.
The judge this week awarded Featherston $250,000 when Childs and Lightfoot did not turn up to answer the charge. According to the Seattle Times, it is unlikely that he will get the money anytime soon – he has to find the defendants first.
Another spam-related legal action hit the headlines this week, as marketing association eMarketersAmerica.org filed a notice of voluntary dismissal over a legal action it had filed against anti-spam activists to prevent them publishing lists of the IP addresses of purported spammers.
According to Wired, the activists, including Spamhaus and SPEWS, have to consent to the notice before it can take effect, and they are unwilling to do this until eMarketersAmerica.org agrees to pay their legal costs. Accordingly, the case is ongoing.
Finally China, seen by many as a safe haven for spammers, has taken action to block servers that were identified as forwarding a huge volume of spam. They will no longer forward e-mail.
According to ZDNet News.com, Ren Jingiang, an official with the Chinese Internet Society of China, told the official state news agency, "This has been the first large-scale spammer blockade launched by the Chinese internet industry".
But with recent reports showing that spam now comprises more than 50% of all e-mail, the anti-spam business looks secure for some time to come.