Spam hampering online life

Monday, 10 November 2003 12:00 AM

Spam is discouraging people from using email and leading to distrust of the online environment, according to a new survey from the US Pew Internet Project.

Users are concerned that important emails are being lost amongst a deluge of junk mail, gumming up inboxes and encouraging the use of overzealous filtering systems, which may screen out important messages. The offensive and dishonest nature of some spam is providing another disincentive.

A national survey found that 60 per cent of email users claim increasing amounts of spam have reduced their overall use of email, and over half are now less trusting of the medium in general. Spam is making the online environment unpleasant or annoying for 70 per cent of online users, and 76 per cent are bothered by offensive or obscene spam.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, younger people between the ages of 18 and 29 are more tolerant of spam, with a third accepting the practice as "just part of life on the Internet and is not that big of a deal". Only 18 per cent of older users take a similarly detached approach.

Email users are however developing avoidance mechanisms to navigate the spam saturated environment. Most emails users avoid giving out their address, or posting it on the web. Spam filters provided by employers appear to be entirely successful in half of cases. For the spam that does get through, 86 per cent of email users report that usually they 'immediately click to delete' their incoming spam.

Despite this avoidance behaviour by many email users, clearly companies harnessing spam as a marketing strategy receive enough responses to unsolicited email to sustain spam as a viable, lucrative endeavour.

But the survey notes that some confusion exists as to how best to rid oneself of this scourge. For example many are perplexed over whether clicking 'remove me from future mailings' will simply confirm one's existence and encourage future junk mail.

The survey was conducted by telephone interview by Princeton Survey Research Associates over a fortnight in June this year. A random digit sample of telephones numbers was used to contact 2,200 adults, aged 18 and older.

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