According to a recent survey of portals such as Daum Communications Corp., Dreamwiz and Korea.com by the IT Chosun, unsolicited e-mail, or spam, took up half of the average Internet user's mailbox and recently, the so-called Short Messaging Services (SMS) for digital cell phones has also started to be abused by spam-mailers.
E-mail Giant Daum said 16million out of 30million e-mails being sent and received a day are unwanted, of which a measurable number is from direct marketers for advertising, while Korea.com noted that 60% of three to four million e-mails circulated daily are from spammers.
"As indecent and advertising spam mail are increasing sharply, Internet users treat various e-mails that offers useful information as unwanted also," said Won Yoon-shik, managing director of Daum Communications.
Experts estimate the amount of spam mail a day stored in e-mail servers to be around 100 million; e-mail servers include those of major account providers including Yahoo, Lycos Korea, and MSN as well as general companies. Specifically, several million spam mails advertising illegal counterfeit software and, or indecent adult sites are delivered daily, which inconveniences Internet users who are expecting wanted e-mail. For instance, e-mail users waste time deleting spam, which causes clogs on the Net. "I waste an hour or more a day deleting some 40 spam mails delivered to my mailbox," said Heo Jin-ho, president of iWorld Networking.
Recently, indecent spam from abroad has become another social problem because senders spray junk to people regardless of age, even elementary school children. "E-mail Cracker," illegal software that collects e-mail addresses on BBSs automatically, sends massive amounts of mail, boosting the spread of spam.
Lee Yoon-seok, managing director of the technical department at Netian said some five million e-mail addresses are traded at W400,000 to W500,000, and the methods of spreading spam are getting smarter, allowing up to one million e-mails to be sent a day.
(Cho Hyeong-rae, hrcho@chosun.com)
