The Cost of Spam & Bulk Email

We all know that spam wastes bandwidth and cycles. We've all read that 10% to 15% of your Internet access costs are associated with spam reduction. We know that many of the exploits that slow Windows machines to a sloth-like crawl are really bots that are used to send spam by remote control.

There are many consequences to the worldwide flood of spam. As a quality management consultant, my concern is spam's erosion of productivity. Email is an integral part of how businesses communicate; Internally and with each other. Uncontrolled, recreationally solicited bulk email becomes as pervasive and damaging to a business as unsolicited spam.

Here's a scenario that I have witnessed first hand as a CEO. Names are changed to protect the innocent.

ABC Widgets is a $50 million company with four branch offices and about 200 employees. Angela is a reasonably dedicated and proficient employee. She is an accounts payable manager. One day, while surfing the web, she signs up to receive free lotto picks by email each morning. She receives a confirmation email and actually "opts in." With her free lotto picks, Angela is told that she can be included in a "special drawing" if she simply refers a friend or co-worker. Within a few days, about 30% of the work force of ABC Widgets has opted in to receive lotto picks. What none of them realized is that they also opted in to receive offers from affiliates. Furthermore, an enterprising employee of the free lotto company has sold the list. Within two weeks, 40% to 50% of the workforce is flooded with thirty or forty spams each day – sometimes more - and it begins to accumulate.

Not only is the review of all this junk wasting a huge amount of company time but one fine day, CEO David (fairly new to his position) decides to send an email to all employees requesting a prompt reply with their current contact information.

Within a few days, only half of the employees comply. Upon personal inspection David learns that at least some of the employees who did not comply with the information request never saw – much less read – David's original email. It became a tiny dot of an island lost in a sea of spam in employees' in-boxes.

David wondered just how much other important email is lost amidst the gratuitous flood of debris.

Summing up our losses, we realize:

1. The costs of employees opting in to bulk mail
2. The costs of employees recommending others to opt in to bulk mail
3. The costs of having employees read the bulk email.
4. The costs of lost business or adverse consquences because business email is obscured by the bulk email rubble

Some solutions are on The Next Page —>