The spam flood is rising, contributing to a reduction in the usefulness of e-mail, a market research firm said Wednesday.

Unsolicited e-mail from con artists, virus writers and advertisers accounts for 38 percent of the 31 billion e-mails sent each day in North America this year, up from 24 percent in 2002, International Data Corp., said in a report on web mail and spam.

In addition, Internet service providers and makers of anti-spam products report that spam represents from 50 percent to 95 percent of all inbound Internet e-mail, IDC said. That's triple the 15 percent to 30 percent levels reported two years ago.

By Antone Gonsalves at Security Pipeline.

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