Spam to exceed person-to-person e-mails: study

Framingham (MA) - For the first time, annual spam e-mails are expected to be greater than ordinary person-to-person (P2P) e-mails in 2007, according to a new study from IDC.

Mark Levitt, IDC VP of enterprise workplace research, attributed part of the growth to new ways of bypassing spam filters. "Spam volumes are growing faster than expected due to the success of image-based spam in bypassing antispam filters and of email sender identity spoofing in getting higher response rates," he said.

However, more of the higher spam-to-P2P ratio will come because personal e-mails are being replaced by instant messaging and voice-over IP (VoIP) applications, said IDC.

The research firm also predicts that business e-mails in 2007 will total 5 exabytes (5 billion gigabytes), more than the past two years combined.