MessageLabs has found that “only” 84.2% of email was spam in August, down from 94.5% in July.

Let that sink in.

Just under one-sixth of email sent last month was “real” mail. That means, on average, someone who receives 10 “real” emails a day will receive 60 pieces of spam. And just that much is an improvement!

Can you imagine that statistic applied to something else, like food? “Only 84% of milk sold in August was contaminated…” Or entertainment. It would be like watching 10 minutes of a TV show scattered among 50 minutes of commercials.

Actually, the way some stations show movies, that might not be too far off the mark…