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AOL members report significantly less spam in 2004
By Juan Carlos Perez

America Online Inc. has declared 2004 a "banner year" in its fight against unsolicited commercial e-mail messages, most commonly referred to as spam.

Spam reports from America Online Inc.'s members fell from a daily average of almost 11 million in November 2003 to a daily average of about 2.2 million in November 2004, the provider of Internet service and content said on Monday.

Meanwhile, AOL blocked at its e-mail gateway 50 percent fewer spam messages in 2004 than in 2003, from a daily average of about 2.4 billion to 1.2 billion, the Dulles, Virginia company said.

"Though there have been, and continue to be, variations in the overall rate of spam, 2004 was the first year with a substantial and consistent - and likely sustainable - drop in spam on AOL since 1999," AOL said in a statement.

In addition to an improvement in its e-mail fighting technology and operations, AOL also credited tougher enforcement activities by the government for the drop in spam.

AOL, a Time Warner Inc. subsidiary, had 22.7 million members in the U.S. and 6.3 million in Europe, at the end of September 2004.

Posted December 29, 2004 06:20 PM |