Gmail, which has been praised by its users for the strength and accuracy of its anti-spam filtering, may be falling behind in the ongoing battle with clever and resourceful spammers, according to Stan Schroder of Mashable in a post written today. I've also noticed a few more spam messages in my Gmail inbox which, like Stan, surprised me since I'm so used to seeing no spam at all there.

I'm a huge fan of Gmail. Checking email in a web browser, also called webmail, has been around for years, but the interfaces used by many internet service providers (such as SquirrelMail) were clunky, especially compared to Outlook. When I saw Gmail, though, I was impressed. Google's interface design for its products tends to be simple, yet attractive and utilitarian. Forwarding my other email to Gmail allowed me to read everything in one place, anywhere there was an internet connection, even on my Mobile Web equipped Verizon cell phone.

But the best feature of Gmail was its heavy-duty, yet remarkably accurate, anti-spam filtering. Rarely did I see any spam in my inbox, and in the two years I've been using Gmail, I'd guess I've found less than two dozen real messages that were filtered into the spam folder. I'd been averaging about 150 spam messages a day until about a week ago, however, when that number jumped to nearly 300 per day. According to statistics from electronic communications security firm MessageLabs, about 50 percent of all email is spam on an average day, with the rate jumping to near 70 percent on weekends. UPDATE: MessageLabs site doesn't appear to be updating these statistics for casual visitors; various other estimates run from 71 percent (Symantec) to 95 percent (Barricuda Networks).

So I imagine the main reason for the additional spam in my Gmail inbox is simply an increase in the amount of spam across the internet lately, possibly due to the Valentine's Day Storm Worm blitz, and Gmail's filters are simply overwhelmed. It's possible that spammers have come up with new ways to circumvent the filters, though, which makes the "community clicks" method of reporting spam that appears in your Gmail inbox as important as ever.