What's The Cost Of Spam False Positives?

from the $3.5-billion?!? dept

We've had plenty of stories suggesting that spam filters often were causing more problems than they were solving, but this is the first time I've seen anything indicating the cost of spam filters flagging false positives. A research firm is estimating that the cost to businesses of false positives is $3.5 billion. The numbers seem a bit questionable to me - as they mostly blame it on "lost productivity" based on the amount of time people spend trying to track down "lost" messages. There are a number of other factors that should be taken into account to get a more accurate number - but that might not make for as impressive a press release. It also ignores the fact that, without spam filters in place, many legitimate emails get lost within the flood of spam as well. This sounds like a study put out by email marketing firms to stop people from using spam filters.

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