The epidemic wasn’t as widespread in the other countries mentioned. Spam comprised 52 percent of messages sent to addresses in the UK, 41 percent in Germany, 32 percent in Australia, and 27 percent in Hong Kong. But Mark Sunner, MessageLabs chief technology officer, says e-mail users in these countries can expect things to get worse. He noted that the UK will likely see volumes of spam similar to U.S. rates in about six months, while Asia-Pacific-region e-mail users will be inundated with junk e-mail within a year. “When it comes to the Internet,” Sunner said, “when the U.S. sneezes, the rest of us catch a cold.”
It stands to reason that e-mail inboxes in the United States would be flooded with spam since most of the world’s unsolicited e-mail come-ons originate in Boca Raton, Florida.