spam came to represent 83 percent of computer traffic at one point this year and has cost Internet providers about $ 500 million (about 360 million euros) in wasted bandwidth, analysts have said.

By November 2008, AOL received an average of 2.2 million complaints daily from more than 24 million subscribers, down from 11 million complaints in the same period last year.

The average daily emails blocked by AOL’s spam filters fell 50 percent to around 1,200 million e-mails in late 2008 from a peak of 2,400 million.

Attempts by those who send unwanted e-mails also dropped to approximately 1,600 million per day, 2,100 million last year.

AOL launched a new version of its software, AOL 9.0 Security Edition in November, including a free version of McAfee VirusScan Online software and improved anti-spam tools.

The company is also part of a coalition of the technology industry comprised of Microsoft, EarthLink and Yahoo Inc., which has vigorously fought the case with trading e-mails, which are hidden through false addresses

“Recently the ISPs seem to think that now comes under ’spam’ to the electronic mailboxes of consumers. These are the first good news I have heard about the ’spam’ – if true – since I started,” said .

Majoras added that filters the best in e-mail had helped to reduce ’spam’.

In December, America Online, the largest online service worldwide, said its spam filters have blocked half of 1.200 million daily e-mails in late 2004, about 50% less than the previous year.

Analysts estimate that spam will cost Internet providers about $ 500 million consumer broadband last year.

Stop spam and misleading advertising are the priorities for the FTC, together with collaboration in surveillance and competition.

But Majoras, whose agency has about 200 open cases against ’spammers’, said the execution of the laws’ spam’ was not enough.