- The amount of energy used to process, filter and transmit spam e-mail in a single year is equal to the electricity used in 2.4 million homes or the greenhouse gas emissions produced by 3.1 million passenger cars, according to a landmark study released yesterday by an Internet security firm.
- Santa Clara, Calif.-based McAfee, which looked at the energy used to create, store, view and filter spam in 11 countries, determined that the average greenhouse gas emissions associated with a single spam message amount to 0.3 grams of CO2. Across those 11 countries, the net effect is staggering, given the 62 trillion spam e-mails sent in 2008.
- “That’s like driving three feet,” the study says. “But when multiplied by the yearly volume of spam, it is equivalent to driving around the earth 1.6 million times.”
- McAfee’s report, the “Carbon Footprint of Spam,” estimated that energy consumed to create and deal with spam globally is 33 billion kilowatt-hours, or 33 terawatt-hours. In other words, spam sucks up a whole lot of energy, with the United States and India producing the highest emissions per e-mail because of intensity of use.“Countries with greater Internet connectivity and users … tended to have proportionately higher emissions per e-mail users,” the report said. “The United States, for example, had emissions that were 38 times that of Spain.”
- Jeff Green, senior vice president of product development at McAfee Avert Labs, said the report highlights the need to stop spam at its source. Spam filtering accounts for 16 percent of spam-related use, he said, because most of the energy use is associated with end users deleting spam and searching for legitimate e-mail.McAfee sells security and filtering products for e-mail and the Web for businesses of all sizes. The company completed the study in conjunction with the energy consulting firm ICF International.
SOURCE: Earth News
No comments:
Post a Comment