I noticed a pretty large reduction in spam in the last week or two myself. Until about two years ago my Yahoo account was only getting a few spams a month. Gradually that increased to at least three or four a day. On bad days I was getting ten or more. The amount always seemed to increase on weekends (as if people have nothing to do but read spams when they're not working). The last week or two it's been down to one or two a day.
Maybe they finally arrested a few high-profile spammers. I heard that a hard-core group of less than one hundred people account for 99% of the spam generated in the world. Given that this number is so small, and I'm sure law enforcement knows exactly who they are, I don't see why the problem is so intractable. Make arrests, have it on the evening news, throw the book at these people with very long prison sentences. If/when they get out, prohibit them from owning a computer or having an Internet connection for life as part of their terms of release. The message would get across to anyone else thinking of a "career" in spamming. Given the shady nature of the products sold, does anyone actually even bother reading these messages let alone ordering anything because of them? I find it amazing that enough people do so to make continued spamming worthwhile. Maybe all ISPs should charge per email once you're over a certain reasonable amount (say 1000 messages per month). This would quickly kill the economics of spamming.
