Statistics can be twisted

> Unwanted e-mail is getting filtered out....GREAT, but at the cost of
> catching some e-mail that IS legit and should be getting through.

Unfortunate, and a good ISP or filter-tuner can minimize the uwanted filtering relatively easily. Yahoo and Hotmail filters are pretty lame, but no good business would let their employees use free email providers.
>
> Has anyone bothered to estimate the cost to US business of undelivered
> NON-Spam or is that simply a "reasonable expense" in the war on
> spam?

It's a cost, to be sure, but avoidable if you have competent administrators. If you're a small business and delegate filtering to your ISP, you get exactly what you deserve. If you lost a lot of important, or even a single important email, you should be able to request an unfiltered feed from your ISP, or change ISPs.

Here are a couple of articles that estimated it (the cost of false positives) to be $3.4B in 2003:
http://www.silicon.com/research/specialreports/thespamreport/0,39025001,10005575,00.htm
http://www.enterpriseitplanet.com/security/news/article.php/2246371

The biggest whining I hear is about SENDERS of email complaining that their stuff isn't getting through because they're sending via incompetent ISPs, or free email providers whose aggressive filtering gets rid of their important messages. That's an issue that the senders need to deal with when folks subscribe to their list. They could refuse to accept Yahoo or Hotmail addresses for subscriptions, insist their customers whitelist them in their personal filters, etc.

Otherwise those kinds of senders just have to admit that some email just isn't going to make it through, and either abandon those subscribers, or use non-email ways to get through to them. If the business model won't support paid-for messaging like snail-mail, then they need to fine-tune their business model.

Email might be cheap, but it's never guaranteed to get through. Not even on a good day before people were using spam filters.

> Something tells me that if ISP's could generate revenue from spam that the
> "problem" would immediately become less severe. (remember all
> the talk about the e-mail tax)

Urban legend about the email tax. http://www.snopes.com/business/taxes/bill602p.asp

Any ISP that allowed senders to spam their clients for pay would quickly lose its customers. One estimate is that ISPs ALREADY lose 3% of their customers every month to churn brought about by disgust with spam.

> And just how many people believe spam IS a big deal. Based upon a recent
> Mirapoint poll 31% of the spam recipients studied clicked on links in the
> message (not including the unsubscribe link) and that 10% purchased the
> product advertised in the spam.

Saw that article. People aren't clicking on 31% of the links and buying things from 10% of their incoming spam. 31% of the surveyed people clicked on links in at least one spam in their life, but that means 69% of folks are clever enough to NEVER have clicked on a spam link. Good for them.

10% of the surveyed people bought something from spam in their lives, but they deleted thousands of spams before they succumbed, I bet.