Despite what your email inbox might be telling you, overall spam rates have dropped below 50 percent for the first time in 12 years.

In June, the rate of unwanted emails reached 49.7 percent1.8 percent less than the month before, which fell 0.6 percent from the month before that.

According to the latest Symantec Intelligence Report, the last time the security firm recorded a similarly low spam rate was in September 2003.

While the classic penis-enlargement and Nigerian prince messages still creep into your daily mail, most folks are likely to find emails pushing Lasik eye surgery, online nursing degrees, and auto insurance. Or perhaps quarrying and excavating: At 56 percent, the mining industry took the award for highest spam rate during May, topping its previous performance of 55 percent.

Manufacturing pulled into second with 54 percent, while construction took third place at 53 percent. Retail (53 percent), public administration (52 percent), and finance/insurance/real estate (52 percent) also made the top 10 list (see below).

Symantec also reported spam rates by organization size, and you might be surprised to learn that smaller companiesthose with one to 500 employeesare most likely to shower you with straight-to-the-trash emails.

Enterprises of all sizes count 52 to 53 percent spam rates, according to the firm. But it seems that the more people you hire, the fewer unwanted messages you send. In May, companies with 501 to more than 2,500 workers sent spam at rates of less than 52.5 percent.

The news comes after Google last week introduced Gmail Postmaster Tools, which lets qualified high-volume senderse-retailers, crowdfunding sites, governments, etc.analyze their email, including data on delivery errors, spam reports, and reputation.

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