Spam is causing less trouble for email users

Apr 12, 2005: A recent survey has revealed that although some email users are receiving more spam than ever before, it does not seem to be the big problem that it used to be because people are becoming less bothered by it.

The study was carried out by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, which is a non-profit initiative that examines the social impact of the Internet, between January 13th and February 9th, 2005.

Its results show that 28 percent of users with a personal email account claim that they get more spam than a year ago, while 22 percent say they are getting less.

However, 53 percent say that spam has made them less trusting of email, compared to 62 percent who claimed this a year ago. This shows that people are growing more acceptable of spam as something that comes with the email territory.

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

Deborah Fallows, the senior research fellow at the Pew Internet Project, said: "We see a little more spam with a little distress since Congress tried to stem the flow of unsolicited email with the CAN-SPAM Act in January 2004.

"Maybe people are getting used to spam, or becoming resigned to it, just like air pollution and crowded roads."

Surprisingly, the findings also discovered that people are getting less porn spam too. 63 percent email users say they have received porn spam, which is down eight percent on a year ago.

Another finding has discovered that more email users have reacted positively to the use of emails from political campaigns over the last year. In June 2003, 74 percent of emailers considered "unsolicited email from a political or advocacy group" to be spam, but this reduced to 66 percent by January 2005.

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