If annoying users and wasting their time wasn't bad enough, spam e-mails are also responsible for clogging our atmosphere
with carbon dioxide, a gas that shoulders much of the blame for global warming, according to a report commissioned by antivirus
vendor McAfee.
"When you look at it from an individual user perspective you're only talking about 0.3 grams of carbon dioxide per spam message,"
said Dave Marcus, director of security research and communications at McAfee’s Avert Labs, in a telephone interview. "When
you extrapolate the math out to the larger numbers, it definitely is significant."
The McAfee report, which was written by consulting company ICF International, said the estimated 62 trillion spam e-mail that get sent each
year consume 33 billion kilowatt hours of electricity, enough to power 2.4 million homes. In addition, spam e-mail releases
as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as 3.1 million cars consuming 2 billion gallons of gasoline.
That sounds bad, but what does it mean? McAfee's report didn't provide an estimate for the daily energy usage of a PC or server,
or the energy consumed by other applications. Without these numbers, it's difficult to put the spam energy numbers into context
and understand their significance.
The report also failed to detail the methodology and assumptions that ICF used to arrive at these numbers. For example, the
report doesn't say what researchers expect computers to be doing if not being used to filter and read spam e-mails or how
this energy could be used for alternative applications. Depending on assumptions like this, it's possible that computers could
be used for tasks that consume more power than applications that fight spam, releasing even greater amounts of carbon dioxide
into the atmosphere.
McAfee deferred questions about the methodology and the assumptions that were made to ICF. However, because the ICF researchers
who wrote the report are based in the United Kingdom, the time difference meant they could not be reached to comment on this
story at the time of writing.
Even so, the crux of McAfee's argument remains unchanged: spam is bad and -- all things held equal -- it's more efficient
to fight spam at the source or e-mail gateway than at the PC.
"It's just so much less efficient if a user has to clean their own mailbox," Marcus said.
The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.
