Similar alarming figures come from the Rambler search portal. "Spam roughly accounts for 80 per cent of total mail. The figure has not seen much change since last year's second half," says Maxim Dunin, Rambler mail R&D manager.
Ashmanov & Partners corporate analysts expect spammers to settle down this year, though it promises them fat sums, no less than last year's 55 million dollars.
2-7 per cent spam messages carry viruses, says Mail.ru. The Yandex search portal is more optimistic, with 1 per cent. As for fishing, it is quite new to Russia-unlike the United States, with its current epidemic scope. Runet is keeping rather clean of it for now.
The preceding two years shifted spammers from porn, which made a bulk in 2003, to commercials. Forged Rolex watches, mobile phones and medicines sell like hot cakes through the web.
Medicines rank second on the Runet spam, with 17 per cent of the total, though porn firmly holds supremacy, with 18, English-language matter making the bulk, says Ashmanov & Partners. Spam ads are a godsend to small and middling businessmen, who are offering a wide range of goods and services from plastic windows to traveling accommodations and babysitters.
