US survey says spam is growing as is tolerance

International
US survey says spam is growing as is tolerance
By Finfacts Team
Apr 10, 2005, 22:41

More than a year after the CAN-SPAM Act became law, email users say they are receiving slightly more spam in their inboxes than before, but they are minding it less.

Printer-friendly page from Finfacts Ireland Business News - Click for the News Main Page - A service of the Finfacts Ireland Business and Finance Portal

The US product SPAM luncheon pork meat (spiced ham) played a crucial role overseas during World War II. With Allied forces fighting to liberate Europe, Hormel Foods provided 15 million cans of food to troops each week. SPAM immediately became a constant part of a soldiers' diets, and earned much praise for feeding the starving British and Soviet armies as well as civilians. After the War, it was sold in both the UK and Ireland. In 1937, Hormel Foods created the first commercial radio jingle which began: "SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, SPAM...." Hormel Foods says in relation to the use of the word "spam" for unsolicited commerecial email (UCE) : Use of the term "spam" was adopted as a result of the Monty Python skit in which our SPAM meat product was featured. In this skit, a group of Vikings sang a chorus of "spam, spam, spam . . . " in an increasing crescendo, drowning out other conversation. Hence, the analogy applied because UCE was drowning out normal discourse on the Internet.

A survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project published on Sunday and conducted between January 13 and February 9, 2005, shows the following:

28% of users with a personal email account say they are getting more spam than a year ago, while 22% say they are getting less.

21% of users with a work email account say they are getting more spam than a year ago, while 16% say they are getting less.

53% of email users say spam has made them less trusting of email, compared to 62% a year ago.

22% of email users say that spam has reduced their overall use of email, compared to 29% a year ago.

67% of email users say spam has made being online unpleasant or annoying, compared to 77% a year ago.

Overall, more than half of all internet users (52%) complain that spam is a big problem.

Among other things, the survey found that people were getting less porn spam, a uniquely troubling form of spam for most users and particularly for women. While 63% of email users now say they have received porn spam, down 8 percentage points from a year ago, 29% of those email users say they are now getting less porn spam, compared to 16% who said they are getting more.

And in a first-time measure of “phishing,” or unsolicited email requesting personal financial information, 35% of users say they have received such email, and 2% have responded by providing the information.

Further Analysis

Slightly Increasing Volume of Spam

Those who keep tabs on spam report major increases in the volume of spam over the last year. For example, the spam filtering company MessageLabs has reported that in an average month during 2004, spam constituted 73% of email, up from 40% in 2003.1

The early 2005 survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that while more users report an increase than a decrease in spam over the last year, the numbers are much more modest than the dramatic increases reported by spam filtering companies that track spam volumes. In personal email accounts, which have always received more spam than work email accounts, 47% of users say they noticed no change in volume of spam, 28% said they were getting more spam, and 22% said they were getting less spam than a year ago. In work mail accounts, 53% of users reported no change, 21% said they were getting more spam, and 16% said they were getting less spam.

This differential between very big increases in calculated spam volume on the internet (an 83% increase reported by MessageLabs) and very modest yet statistically significant increases in spam reported by emailers, suggests that for whatever reason – better filters, more filters, better spam avoidance behavior by users – not much of that additional spam is making it to the inboxes of users.

Declining Impact of Spam

Over the last year and a half, the Pew Internet & American Life Project has been polling internet users about their awareness, behavior, and attitudes toward spam. In a June, 2003, survey, 25% of internet users reported they were using email less because of spam, and 52% said spam made them less trusting of email in general. In addition, some 71% said that spam made being online unpleasant or annoying.

About 8 months later, and two months after the CAN-SPAM Act became law, the negatives intensified, despite the fact that the law was designed to apply restrictions to unsolicited commercial email. Respondents to our survey suggested that users’ frustrations with spam were mounting and the quality of their internet experience was declining. In February, 2004, some 29% of email users said they were using email less because of spam (up 4 points), and 62% said spam had caused them to lose trust in email (up 10 points). And 77% of users said spam made being online unpleasant or annoying (up 6 points). All increases were statistically significant.

Nearly another year later, in January, 2005, the Pew Internet Project again polled internet users on some of the questions about spam. This time, negatives fell back significantly, reverting to their mid-2003 figures or even lower. This suggests the findings from almost one year ago might have represented a spike or a high point, rather than a growing negative trend of the impact of spam on the internet experience.