Here’s a little-known but very interesting fact about email spam. The first letter of your email address often determines the amount of spam that is hitting your inbox daily.
Dr Richard Clayton at University of Cambridge analyzed (PDF report) over half a billion spam email messages and made this conclusion:
Email addresses starting with popular alphabets like ‘A’, ‘M’, ‘S’, ‘R’ or ‘P’ are much more likely to receive spam than addresses that begin with uncommon letters like ‘Y’, ‘Q’ or ‘Z’.
So if your name is Maria and you’re getting more email spam that your cousin Yaro, you now know the reason why - blame your name. Thanks Pratham.
Related: How to Manage Email Overload
Find this article at: http://www.labnol.org/internet/email/why-you-get-more-email-spam/4369/
web: http://www.labnol.org/ email: amit@labnol.org
Reader Comments
Sorry, somehow I do not get your argumentation. You say:
… Email addresses starting with popular alphabets like ‘A’, ‘M’, ‘S’, ‘R’ or ‘P’ are much more likely to receive spam than addresses that begin with uncommon letters like ‘Y’, ‘Q’ or ‘Z’.
–> this says y, q and z get less spam. Right?
In the next sentence you then say:
… So if your name is Yaro and you’re getting more email spam that your cousin Maria, you now know the reason why - blame your name.
–> this says yaro gets more spam. Right?
But maybe it’s just me and I do not understand english… ;-)
Written by Markus on 09.02.08
“So if your name is Yaro and you’re getting more email spam that your cousin Maria, you now know the reason why - blame your name.”
It should be the other way around… I suggest you re-read your own article there…
Written by Srinidhi Venkatesh on 09.02.08
Ah.. that was an error on my part. Sorry about that.
Written by Amit Agarwal on 09.02.08
>So if your name is Yaro and you’re getting more email spam that your cousin Maria, you now know the reason why - blame your name.
It should be, “So if your name is Maria and you’re getting more email spam that your cousin Yaro, you now know the reason why - blame your name.”
Written by Anurag on 09.02.08
As simple as that change your name and get lower spam ;)
Written by Amit Bhawani on 09.03.08
@Amit Bhawani - LOL …….I would rather change the email address rather than changing the name …..
Written by Roshan Bhattarai on 09.04.08
I totally appreciate the idea of Amit Bhawani. But I will not do either of one. There are many ways to protect our email from spammers. Further we can switch to premium yahoo email services for more protection..
Written by Royalblogger on 03.20.09