The amount of spam email transmitted, the effectiveness of spam, the costs and benefits of spam, and a discussion of five ways of possibly reducing spam are the main topics covered in this paper. The paper’s coverage is mostly confined to literature that was published prior to March 2004. The 33 references are mostly to the trade literature, and to publications dealing with US law. I did not notice anything in this paper that was news; all of the paper’s content seemed to revisit well-trodden ground, with select points collected and summarized.

The paper notes that, as of early 2004, the majority of spam was in English, originated in the US, and could be classified into various types, such as marketing, phishing, and worms. Spam amounted to as much as 80 percent of email globally at that time, according to the authors. The paper also notes that spam is regarded by its senders as more effective than paper junk mail. Six aspects of spam’s costs and benefits are also discussed: the cost burden of spam, the use of spam in cyberwarfare, the shortcomings of spam filters, the use of spam for harassment or fraud, the use of spam in vandalism, and the potential conflict between free speech and spam restrictions. More than half of this paper discusses ways of possibly reducing spam. This paper does not close with a summary or a set of conclusions, but with a suggestion that canning spam is a social problem.