Certainly you’ve seen a spam message or two by now; you know; they’re the thousands upon thousands of unwanted e-mails that are piling up in your inbox’s Spam Folder. In fact, some of the more sneaky spam email even make their way through spam filtering and end up directly in your inbox. In fact, chances are you’ve probably accidently clicked on one thinking it was a real e-mail – don’t worry, we’ve all done it. But where exactly is all of this spam coming from? It must originate from somewhere, right? Well, the answer may surprise you.

Believe it or not, there aren’t really that many sources of spam e-mail, especially when you consider the amount of unsolicited commercial e-mail that is sent over the course of an average day. In fact, estimates predict that nearly 80% of all spam throughout North America and Europe can be traced to less than 200 professional spammers.

But as far as the location of the actual spammers themselves, well, the majority of them are right here in the United States of America which is responsible for nearly 20% of the entire world’s spam; this is twice the amount of the nearest competitor, China. Russia comes in third place providing just over 6% of the world’s unsolicited commercial e-mails, followed by Brazil and finally, the country of Turkey. When grouped by continents, however, the numbers stack up a little bit differently. Asia is responsible for nearly 40%, with North America coming in second, Europe a close third and South America in fourth place.