Decrease in spam as signal of internet maturing

The Economist is running an article about the apparent decline of spam (Winning the war on spam, $). The article claims that, according to data collected by MessageLabs, spam peaked some time in 2004 and has been slowly declining ever since. For example, between January and June this year, it declined from 83% to 67% of all emails sent. Apparently, users have learned how to recognise and ignore spam, seriously damaging spammers’ business model, who are moving on to more aggressive (and presumably more lucrative) strategies. Phishing, for instance, has increased dramatically in the last year.

Apart from a smarter user attitude, improved spam filtering technology and an important number of lawsuits are helping make spamming unprofitable. Remarkably, it have been traditional consumer-protection and fraud laws, and not specific ‘internet laws’, which have been used in these lawsuits.

It seems to me that this evolution signals the maturing of the internet as just another communication tool. We are getting more familiar with the new medium, we are getting smarter about defending ourselves, and not making a fuss about it. Judges are learning how to apply ‘old’ laws to this new medium. The internet does not seem to be, after all, the ‘new economy‘ that some claimed would be governed by new rules. It will take a while longer for life online to normalize itself, but when it does I am sure we will see that it is not, after all, so different about human life offline. Just another manifestation of it.