Spam Sucks Up As Much Power as 2.4 Million US Households

spam carbon footprint report image
Cover of McAfee Report

There's a whole new reason to hate spam. Not only is it annoying, it also is a big energy consumer. Anti-virus software specialist McAfee reports that it comprises over 80% of all email traffic...and it's growing.

The report, called Carbon Footprint of E-mail Spam Report states that Symantec's Internet Security Threat Report recorded a 192% increase in spam detected across the internet, from 119.6 billion messages in 2007 to 349.6 billion in 2008, with 90% of those messages coming from bot networks.

The greenhouse gases created from the electricity it takes to create, send, and delete the emails equates to 3.1 million cars. Yep...spam is frustrating for a lot more reasons than a full junk mail box. On the flip side, the report states that "spam filtering saves 135 TWh of electricity per year. That’s like taking 13 million cars off the road." But we wouldn't need to worry about saving that amount of energy if spam weren't around in the first place. Wishful thinking...

The report has some very interesting key findings about the carbon footprint of spam and it's worth a glance through, especially if you want to get even more riled up about the evils of spammers.

Via the Guardian

More on Internet Energy Use
The Footprint of Gmail: How Much Energy Would Deleting Email Save?
6 Ways to Offset Your Web Surfing Emissions
The Internet is Becoming More Energy Efficient, But Total Energy Use is Climbing
Facebook's Monthly Electricity Bill Tops $1 Million