Of all the inconveniences of spam, it is the wasted work time and overfilled disk space that cost the most. According to a recent study by the American institute Radicati Group, spam still causes quite a considerable cost for businesses. The study also shows what an anti-spam solution can do and how quickly it pays off – if the filter does its job properly and detects spam reliably.

According to their study, a typical 1,000-user organization can spend about 1.8 million dollars (1.2 million euros) a year to manage spam! Compared to this, the cost of managing internal filter solutions, which costs around 7000 dollars, is quite modest. Disk space wasted on junk data is a different story: Companies have to spend an average of 220,000 dollars on resources such as hard disks if they are to maintain their regular email traffic while trying to cope with the daily flood of spam. Yet, the real cost of spam is so subtle, it often ends up unnoticed: The loss of productivity whacks up a hefty sum of 1.5 million dollars. It is only a couple of minutes of every employee’s time spent on sorting through their email and deleting spam that accumulates this enormous cost.

The findings of the U.S. study apply equally to Europe, given that spam is a global problem. In another study, antispameurope has confirmed that spam costs German companies an average of 800 euros per workplace. Most importantly, there is a direct relationship between the spam recognition rate and the bulk of costs generated by spam. “The higher a spam filter’s recognition rate, the lower the overall costs,” explains Oliver Dehning, general manager of antispameurope. “A good filter can reduce total costs dramatically compared to a bad filter.”


99% or 99.9% spam recognition – what's the difference?

The importance of the recognition rate when considering costs can be seen from this example: at a recognition rate of 99%, 10 out of 1,000 spam mails will still make it into your Inbox. If 99.9% of the unwanted rubbish data is successfully blocked, then only one spam mail will delivered. When the spam volume gets high, this apparently small difference has a significant influence on the resulting costs.

How long it takes an anti-spam solution to pay off therefore depends largely on its recognition rate. Users have noticed this too: in antispameurope’s study, 74% of those surveyed valued ‘recognition rate’ as the most important criterion, ahead of ‘few false positives’ (44%). “Not surprising, really,” Oliver Dehning continues. “The primary objective of a spam filter is, after all, to stop spam – not let it through.”

Diagram: What is the main criterion by which would you choose a spam filter? (Source: survey antispameurope 2008/2009, 826 respondents in the IT sector)

About antispameurope

antispameurope Managed Security Services protect company IT infrastructure and data as an upstream protective barrier ‘in the cloud’, far outside the limits of the company’s own network. The SaaS solutions can be used by companies of all sizes without additional software, hardware or maintenance requirements. The package includes spam and virus filters, web-filters, email archiving, continuity service and automatic email encryption. Administrators and users maintain an overview of data streams and the function of all services with the antispameurope control panel. All of antispameurope’s services are performed in redundant secure data processing centres, and are available around the clock.

Find out more at www.antispameurope.de

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