“More than 95% of e-mail is junk, be it spam, error messages or viruses, report mail monitoring firms,” began a horrifically inaccurate article on the BBC News Web site last week.
“E-mail security firm Return Path said 99% of the computers it monitors that send mail have been taken over by spammers or virus writers,” the horrifically inaccurate article by BBC technology correspondent Mark Ward continued.
Trouble is, Return Path—which is not an e-mail security firm as Ward reported—never said anything of the sort.
“For one, we were not talking about the share of spam out there – we were talking about the percent of IP addresses likely sending spam,” wrote George Bilbrey, general manager of Return Path’s delivery assurance solutions unit, on the company’s Web site. “What our research showed is that 97% of IP addresses sending email have terrible reputations. Are they spammers? Most likely. Are they hijacking computers? Maybe. Will they earn inbox delivery? No.”
Even worse, the BBC News piece spawned a series of equally inaccurate pieces from other European outlets, such as the following blurb from UPI:
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20060728-044647-4330r
The only way mistakes like this happen is when reporters don’t verify facts using the original source of information—unforgivable in an age when their asses don’t even have to leave their chairs to do it.
BBC News Misreports Spam Issue - website article full of inaccuracies
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