Economic impact of spam in a Sri Lankan perspective

Abstract

This study on the economic impact of spam in a Sri Lankan perspective, attempts to evaluate the impact of spam especially on the local knowledge workers. It identifies based on previous research, that knowledge workers and organizations, ISP's and ESP's and the Government as well spammers to be the key entities playing a leading role in implications related to spam. It evaluates the impact of spam on the local knowledge workers at length, based on a survey. The study also attempts to provide a brief over view of the situation in relation to spam, with the local ISP's as well as the government policy making bodies based on a series of interviews and also provides a brief investigation in to the modus operandi of the local spammers./ The study finds that 1 in every 2.3 emails received by a local knowledge worker or 43% of the email received is spam. It also finds that an average employee receives 41.39 emails, 17.76 spam and 2.70 local oriented spam (spam of local origin, and intended to a local audience) per day. Average knowledge worker wastes around 4 minutes 49 seconds due to spam related issues per day and also loses 0.93% of his/her productivity due to spam. The study estimates that, subjected to available data, the National Annual Total Lost Productivity due to spam could stand around Rs.219 Million to Rs.446 Million. The study also makes a multitude of other findings in relation to lost band width, spam protection, the user behavior regarding spam related activities. It is seen that a surprisingly large number of local users would open and read spam./ The study identifies that there are no laws in relation to spam in Sri Lanka. It is observed that the local spammers would spam between 25,000 - 75,000 local entail addresses and the cost per email advert ranges between 2ccnts and 12cents per message. While evaluating the quantifiable aspects of spam on local knowledge workers, based on these and other findings the research suggests that Sri Lanka may be or become a safe heaven of spammers, and stresses the importance of having laws, a code of ethics and a national strategy to combat spam.