Robert Alan Soloway who has been described as one of the world’s top spammers was arrested last Wednesday. The media immediately applauded his arrest and made lots of silly claims that it would make the daily onslaught change to a trickle. The numbers tell a different story.

Sharon Gaudin’s interview with Craig Sprosts with IronPort tells the true tale. Even though the government is bringing him to justice, there are more people like Soloway waiting in the wings.

“Sprosts said in an interview that in the last few days the amount of spam dropped 8%, which is equal to 6 billion messages. The issue, though, is that the numbers dropped from 80 billion to 74 billion, leaving levels not so far below their historic level of 80 billion.”

It’s not only that there are others waiting to fill the void but it’s also not possible for one arrest or even hundreds to make any dent in it. So much of the business of sending spam is automated that there is little hope of stopping it completely or even slowing it down.

The only way we can hope to conquer spam is for people to stop opening spam emails, clicking on links in them, and the dumbest of all, buying the products promoted through spam. Spam is sent because it’s successful for the spammers.

Talk to your friends, children, and parents about spam. Make sure they know better than to open and engage the spammers. After-all, if we cut out their business model there will no longer be an incentive for them to continue it.

[tags]email, emails, spam, spam filter[/tags]

[Why Catching The 'Spam King' Won't Save Your Inbox]