The takedown last week of a rogue ISP by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) slashed spam volumes by about 15% and reduced the spam spewed by a pair of big-name botnets by as much as to just 64%, a security firm said today.

The Internet is now officially as bad as ever, at least as far as spam goes.

A big spam-spewing botnet shut down two weeks ago has been resurrected, security researchers said Wednesday, and is again under the control of criminals.

Two weeks after a hosting firm's shutdown sent global spam volumes plummeting, some researchers continue to claim that junk mail rates remain dramatically down, while others say spam has already bounced back.