Why Do You Get More Email Spam Than Your Cousin?

email-spamHere’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

Amit Agarwal

Amit Agarwal

Google Developer Expert, Google Cloud Champion

Amit Agarwal is a Google Developer Expert in Google Workspace and Google Apps Script. He holds an engineering degree in Computer Science (I.I.T.) and is the first professional blogger in India.

Amit has developed several popular Google add-ons including Mail Merge for Gmail and Document Studio. Read more on Lifehacker and YourStory

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Awards & Titles

Digital Inspiration has won several awards since it's launch in 2004.

Google Developer Expert

Google Developer Expert

Google awarded us the Google Developer Expert award recogizing our work in Google Workspace.

ProductHunt Golden Kitty

ProductHunt Golden Kitty

Our Gmail tool won the Lifehack of the Year award at ProductHunt Golden Kitty Awards in 2017.

Microsoft MVP Alumni

Microsoft MVP Alumni

Microsoft awarded us the Most Valuable Professional (MVP) title for 5 years in a row.

Google Cloud Champion

Google Cloud Champion

Google awarded us the Champion Innovator title recognizing our technical skill and expertise.

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