For some reason, internet security and antivirus companies are spending a ton of money on PR in the UAE. It feels like I get spammed (ahh, the irony) at least once each day with a random press release letting me know about how some terrible new virus is about to destroy the world, and that Mr Smith from ABC Antivirus Co. is ready to speak to me about it.
Because the market is so crowded, every release tries to jump on the bandwagon of a big issue of the day - internet security in the financial crisis, cybercrime and the Somali pirates, etc etc.
Anyhow, today's meta-Spam came from McAfee, who are highlighting the effect of spam on....drumroll please...the environment. Some good figures to rattle off at dinner parties, plus some snarkiness from me, after the jump:
Spam causes global warming! Apparently, and I would take these figures with a grain of salt:
In late 2008, McColo, a major source of online spam, was taken offline and global spam volume dropped 70 percent. The energy saved in the ensuing lull before spammers rebuilt their sending capacity, equated to taking 2.2 million cars off the road that day, proving the impact of the 62 trillion spam e-mails that are sent each year...
If every inbox were protected by a state-of-the-art spam filter, organizations and individuals could reduce today's spam energy by 75 percent or 25 TWh per year, the equivalent of taking 2.3 million cars off the road.
Hurry, environmentalists! To your nearest retailer of state-of-the-art spam filters!
Interesting figures. But the real question is: what is the global carbon footprint of the useless press release industry?
Click here if you want to check out McAfee's "The Carbon Footprint of Email Spam" report
. It is downloadable from their website, but there is a catch - you need to give them your email address first :)
