Is SPAM Dead?

Commtouch recently released an interesting study denoting a 30% decline in SPAM activity in Q4.  With the improvements (and proliferation) of consumer SPAM detection tools, as well as the blacklisting of IP space by organizations like  Spamhaus and SpamCop, I believe that SPAM may be starting a much-welcomed death spiral.  Don’t get me wrong SPAM will always be around, but I think it will be much less prolific in the future.  SPAM has been a problem for the web hosting industry since the beginning, in recent years the growth of SPAM has reached epidemic status.  While SPAM is inconvenient for consumers, it’s expensive for web hosting companies and IT departments.  According to Ferris Research the worldwide cost of SPAM was $130B in 2009 (the bulk of this number is lost productivity).  Roughly 15% of these costs are the IT costs associated with fighting SPAM.  That’s $19.5 billion dollars spent annually by hosting companies and IT departments to combat SPAM.  Less SPAM is a welcomed and financially positive trend for the web hosting industry. 
The real question is why is SPAM dying now?  I believe the “death” of SPAM can be attributed to three main factors.  First IPv4 space is more valuable than ever, the few rogue hosting companies that specialize in SPAM have been cut off from getting additional inventory and the inventory they have is effectively sullied by its past activity.  Second, increased regulatory pressure and criminal prosecution have taken some of the large players out of the industry.  Finally, the vast majority of spammers are doing this to make a profit; increasingly these profits are no longer easily achieved.  Think about it… with today’s technology we no longer see SPAM in our inbox, the few that do get through are almost completely ineffective, where’s the profit in that?  I believe spammers are largely moving to other more profitable nefarious activities, which will present a new set of challenges for the web hosting industry.