China appears to have made a great deal of headway in cleaning up its spam problem.
China was previously considered the largest source of the world’s spam but it has been getting it under control, and now the country is probably only just in the top 20.
According to the International Telecommunications Union China has 420 million Internet users. In January 2009, China was ranked the number three spam-producing country in the world, according to data compiled by security vendor Sophos.
But by the end of 2009, spam from China started to drop off significantly. Sophos now ranks China as spam producer number 20, right behind Spain.
Spam fighters from the US are now working more closely with members of the Internet Society of China – the group behind China’s anti-spam effort – to work out standards and better ways of cooperating. These efforts will be released next month in a report, “Fighting Spam to Build Trust.”
ComputerWorld reports the US remains the top-spamming country and the source of about one-fifth of the world’s spam.