In my yahoo360 blog, I wrote:
RP is e-mail spam capital of Asia? (March 27, 2007)
A news report by ABS-CBN News
(http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/storypage.aspx?StoryID=71193) claims that
"according to the (Symantec) report, 88 percent of e-mails coming from the
Philippines are spam".
I strongly disagree with this claim, for several reasons. First, Filipinos do
not yet have an e-mail culture. The truth is, we do not have a writing culture
at all! Filipinos don't write. Period. We may be the text capital of the world,
because we are text crazy. We do not write when we send text message messages
like "D2 NA ME" instead of "NANDITO NA AKO". We telegraph, abbreviate, corrupt
our Taglish into non-recognizable gibberish. But we don't write! How can 88
percent of our emails be spam, when we hate sending emails? To prove this, just
email your favorite congressman and see if he will answer you within one year.
Second, we do not have enough computers, and those who have computers do not
have broadband access. Broadband is a requirement for generating email in such
volumes as to be considered spam. From the point of view of infrastructure, we
can NOT be the e-mail spam capital of Asia.
I think Symantec did not study its data enough to make that conclusion. Did
Symantec check the e-mail envelopes (that contain all the email hops) to verify
the actual origin of the emails? I think Symantec had been remiss in ignoring
the e-mail envelopes.
I will agree that 88 percent of the emails that I receive is spam. Emails from
other countries selling Viagra to me and to my daughters, or selling all kinds
of vitamins and pharmaceuticals, or e-mails from South Africa wanting to give
me USD2,000,000.00, or e-mails telling me that I have won USD4,000,000.00 etc,
or Windows-virus-carrying e-mails which I laugh at because I use Linux. The
list is endless. But I don't originate them -- I just receive them, and most of
them are from abroad. And my experience, and the experiences of my colleagues
point to the conclusion that 88 percent of e-mail that we RECEIVE from abroad
is SPAM. Not 88 percent of emails that we send. Symantec -- study your data
before you make such wild accusations.
P~Manalastas
P.S.: I mentioned Linux so that this post will fit into the into the [PLUG-OT]
mailing list.
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