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MONDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2009
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 ANALYSIS 
1

Spam Doesn't Waste Energy, Humans Do

Study miscalculates how people use computers: Kaplan

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(Newser) – A recent study that equates spam’s carbon footprint to that of a whopping 2.4 million homes is fascinating, but completely wrong, Jeremy Kaplan writes in PC Magazine. The researchers traced most of the energy usage to the end user’s computer, but that energy-waster would probably be left on even if no one was manually filtering spam, he points out.

“If you had absolutely no spam in your inbox, would you turn your PC off earlier—or use the extra time you’ve saved to play more World of Warcraft?” asks Kaplan, noting that “business users leave their PCs on all day regardless of whether they’ve finished sorting their inboxes.”

If most businesses leave their computers on anyway, it doesn't waste any more energy to filter spam on them, Kaplan says.
If most businesses leave their computers on anyway, it doesn't waste any more energy to filter spam on them, Kaplan says.   (Shutter stock)
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Bottom line: PCs waste energy, and humans leave them on too long, wasting energy. But spam? It's kind of meaningless here. - Jeremy A. Kaplan

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TerrifiedCitizen
Apr 16, 09 2:26 PM CDT
The havoc that spam creates is very difficult to quantify... it is just another inconvenience or danger that one might encounter while living in any other large cosmopolitan city, similar to the web. The user must simply be beware; perhaps wise advice to people who are generally gullible in life, is to stay away from the web? Reply
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