By Doug Stein

Everybody hates spam. There is no secret there. Organizations generally purchase anti-spam software with high expectations. They usually expect spam to go away permanently once they have implemented a solution. Unfortunately spammers present a unique set of problems for anti-virus companies, which in turn often lead to disappointment from the buyers. This begs the question: Is it fair to say that anti-spam software should be allowed to perform at a less than perfect standard?

There are a few factors to consider in determining what may be fair expectations for anti-spam software. First, the volume of spam today compared to last year or two years ago is significantly larger. Why? Well, spam like any other scam has been adopted by scam artists all over the globe. Hey, news of a good scam travels far and wide in the underworld. In June 2006, an estimated 80% of e-mail spam were sent by zombie PCs alone, an increase of 30% from the prior year. An estimated 55 billion e-mail spam were sent each day in June 2006, an increase of 20 billion per day from June 2005. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-mail_spam).

Every day spammers are hard at work finding ways of circumventing new spam blocking technology. Let's face it, they are in business to get their junk into your mailbox and they are probably working much harder than the software companies. Sorry to say. They have no choice. If all of their spam gets blocked, they will be out of business. The likelihood of that happening is obviously and unfortunately very low. Essentially about one in every 1.6 emails today is spam.

So, what's the message here? Certainly do not expect less than good results and service from any anti-spam solution provider. However it might not be a bad idea on the other hand, to have slightly more realistic expectations. This entire discourse stems from several situations I have experienced or heard about recently. A few customers had called in to complain about the amount of spam GWAVA was letting through. Now, anytime you receive a call of that nature from a customer, as a sales person, the goal is always to find the quickest resolution to that problem and to provide the utmost level of service. We will always take the customer very seriously and work with them to figure out what the problem is.

Aside from the customers who did not have GWAVA configured effectively, we found that most other complaints came from larger organizations (1000 users or more) that were blocking 95% (or more) of their spam. They were simply unsatisfied with the remaining 5% (or less) that were getting through. I am referring to users, usually higher ups, receiving maybe 5 spam messages a day, while blocking about 95. Normally in all other facets of life, a 95% score is usually considered top notch. So why is it that some organizations today expect nothing less than perfection from anti-spam vendors? Perhaps it is because spam is a pain and often offensive or perhaps some customers really dislike the idea of having to pay for a solution to such an annoying problem. I can certainly empathize with those who feel either way, but with a little information and education I think we can help those individuals and their respective organizations feel better about the results they are getting.