The US and China often trade places for the dubious distinction of being the world’s leading Spam Haven country. Here’s the latest from an authoritative source, Spamhaus. (My only other post about this was in January 2020.) Below are the world’s worst Spam Haven countries for enabling spamming, as of 25 October 2020. Notice that China and the US are neck and neck while Russia is a distant third. Viet Nam, which rarely appears among the top 20, not to mention the top 10, has only 284 “current live spam Issues.” In fact, China and the US nearly 10 times more “live Spam issues” as Viet Nam.

Here’s an explanation from Spamhaus:

Spam is a global problem yet some countries do little to deter spammers from operating within their borders. These countries tend to have either weak or non-existent anti-spam laws. They become safe havens for spam operations and undermine global efforts to stop spam; even to the detriment of their own nation, networks and citizens.

Some ISPs within these countries are reluctant or outright refuse to take action without such a basis in law, even though most ISPs use ‘Acceptable Use Policy’ (AUP) agreements which are enforced on a contractual basis. It seems that only when the world at large recognizes the poor reputation of these countries is any form of action taken.

I mention this because emails from Viet Nam to the US, for example, often end up in SPAM folders, which most colleagues don’t check on a regular basis, or they’re filtered out altogether by the institution’s server. Some have very strict settings. The irony is so thick you can cut it with a knife.

Shalom (שלום), MAA