Leading UK based anti-spam (junk email) software company, ClearMyMail, has published a list of the Top 10 spam targeted UK Internet Service Provider’s (ISPs) and thus reflects which ISP is potentially the most harmful.

The percentage reflects how many of the individual ISPs customers' emails are indeed spam and it's not good news for Orange UK's subscribers:


Research showed that a massive 96% of all emails that have gone through the ClearMyMail anti-spam system via Orange ISP’s, were either spam or virus related. This is bad news for Orange, whose last quarterly results saw them at only 6th place, with an 89% average spam rate.

In contrast, Talk Talk and Force 9 have demonstrated some positive results; Force 9 was previously the leader with a 95% average spam rate, dropping 4.2% this quarter. Talk Talk has, by far, revealed the greatest improvement, dropping from 2nd place in Q4 2007 with a 95% average spam rate, to a significantly lower 82.8%, tumbling to 9th place.

The results are curious because Force9 has been Plusnet for awhile now, likewise MacUnlimited became Breathe sometime back and BT Internet has been BT Total Broadband for the best part of nearly two years. In addition, UK Servers is a Web Host and not an Internet Access Provider, but then the definition of ISP can be a bit loopy at times.

Meanwhile, ClearMyMail also looked at which countries produce the highest number of UK targeted spam and, much like Q4 2007, America is leading the way with just under 20% of all rogue emails coming from the USA:


However, it is important to note that despite leading this poll for the second consecutive quarter, the percentage of spam emails coming to the UK from the USA has dropped by almost 30% since the last quarter. The 19.53% of emails coming from the USA is being closely followed by the UK, who is now responsible for 15.68% of all rogue emails entering UK email accounts; an increase of 2.59% from the last quarter.