Google’s Gmail Improves Spam Detection, MSN Hotmail Lags Behind

Only 3% of of opt-in e-mails were treated as spam by Gmail, according to a new report from Lyris, a maker of e-mail marketing software. That’s a 15-fold improvement in performance compared to when Gmail launched in 2004.

The Lyris report also notes that:

• MSN Hotmail has improved its false-positive spam detection, but remains high (18.2% this quarter vs. 23.4% the previous quarter).
• European ISPs are better than American ISPs at filtering out false-positives. Compuserve and iwon.com aggressively filter spam, leading to a high rate of false positives.

From the New York Times (which doesn’t note the Hotmail stats):

“In its latest quarterly test, Lyris tracked more than 57,000 e-mail messages, sent from 57 different businesses and nonprofit organizations to scores of e-mail addresses it owns in many different domains. The messages included marketing pitches for electronics and perfume, and noncommercial matter like a wine newsletter. None of the senders were Lyris clients; all the recipients had signed up to receive the messages.In the most recent test, 3.3 percent of those e-mail messages were treated as spam by American Internet providers – something that marketers call a false positive.“

Google Operating System notes that Gmail users complained to Slashdot about the problem years ago.