Spam Takes 'Product Of The Year' Prize
December 29, 2003 (12:37 p.m. EST)
TechWeb News


Spam may get called lots of names -- many of them composed from words of four letters -- but 'Product of the Year' isn't usually one of them.

Still, that's the label stuck on spam by Basex, a New York-based research and consulting firm, which recently named the plague as the top 'product' of 2003.

Basex explained the 'honor' -- much as “Time” magazine has had to explain the designation of dictators as its 'Man of the Year' in years past -- by saying that nothing beat spam in its impact on business during 2003. And with spam's dramatic increase this year, the possibility that it might repeat in 2004 is good.

Spam's impact -- measured in the cost to companies worldwide in lost productivity, clogged e-mail systems, bandwidth consumed, and the money spent on deploying anti-spam software -- gave it the nod by Basex. Dealing with spam cost enterprises about $20 billion in 2003, estimated Basex, and is growing at a rate of 100 percent a year. Anti-spam software alone accounted for $600 million, which will likely climb to $2 billion by 2005, said Basex.

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