Spam survey results at the level of ISPs

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A survey was conducted among Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in September 2006 to assess the extent of the spam problem and measures implemented, at the level of ISPs in their effort to minimise the problem of spamming in Mauritius.

The survey result has helped quantify and specify the origin of unsolicited commercial emails. The feeling of ISPs was also sought on the undesirable effects of spam and its subscribers.

The main findings of the study are summarised as follows. The extent and impact of spam in Mauritius reaches the same extent of the universal problem encountered by countries over the world. 74% of the ISPs surveyed mentioned that they received more than 500 unsolicited commercial emails each day, which is a high value and causes a lot of nuisance to the service providers.

Table 1 : Spam received daily

Figure 1 : Spam received daily

It was also reported by 37% of ISPs, that less than 10% of email messages received per day can be considered as spam, as shown below in table 2, while 25% of ISPs estimated the percentage of spam going through their network to be within a range of 10% to 30% and 41% to 50%.

Table 2 : Email received considered as spam

Figure 2 : Email considered as spam

The ISPs surveyed recorded that most of the spam emails they have detected on their system actually originate from overseas. 62% of ISPs revealed that more than 70% of email received from overseas may be considered as spam.

Figure 3 : Overseas spam email