A move by the Federal Trade Commission to close the rogue ISP Pricewert has cut the international levels of spam by 14 per cent.

The FTC claimed that Pricewert was used to distribute illegal, malicious, and harmful content and deployment of botnets. After the FTC shut down Pricewert, the Cutwail botnet which is responsible for 35 percent of all spam in May suddenly suffered a major, outage. Another botnet Pushdo was also reportedly affected.

Both Pushdo and Cutwail used 3FN one of Pricewert's shop fronts. According to the data released Monday by TRACElabs, the overall spam volume index has been reduced by 15 percent since Thursday. While Pricewert has not been convicted of anything yet and this could all be a coincidence, the speed at which the spammers have recovered is alarming. 

It is looking like they have learnt the value of not sticking their eggs in one basket.