Anti-spam sentiment grows
Published: 06 Jan 2003 10:58 GMT
Web users are more annoyed than ever by the continuous flood of unsolicited bulk email sent to inboxes every day; 80 percent of Internet users surveyed said they are "very annoyed" by spam, compared with only 49 percent who responded similarly two-and-a-half years ago, according to the latest Harris Poll. As a result of their irritation, an estimated 74 percent are proponents of making bulk email illegal, while only 12 percent are opposed to banning it.
Spam has grown by gigantic proportions in the last year. According to email filtering company Brightmail, the number of spam attacks grew from nearly two million in November 2001 to about 5.5 million in the same period of 2002. Each spam attack represents a unique mass mailing of commercial messages.
The crush of spam has cost companies enormously as well. A new study expected on Monday estimates that the annual cost of spam to European businesses is $2.5bn. US and European service providers shoulder another $500m in costs, according to market researcher Ferris Research. The figures were reported by the Associated Press.
To tally the figures, researchers factor in the loss of employee productivity in deleting junk email, as well as costs for added bandwidth, technical staff, and servers to support junk mail.
The Harris Poll, which was conducted online by market researcher Harris Interactive, surveyed 2,221 adults, over the age of 18, during the period of 22 November to 2 December, 2002.
According to the survey, respondents said that they were most annoyed by pornographic junk mail, followed by financially related pitches.
While consumers' frustration for spam went up, it softened for other common gripes about the Internet, including Web surfing speeds. Those who were typically miffed by "how long it takes to find the Web sites you need" fell from 20 percent to 10 percent, for example. The responses were largely the result of broadband adoption, the report said.
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