Web users 'getting used' to junk mail
11 April 2005
Net users are starting to get used to spam and accept it as a fact of life, according to a new survey.
A report from the Pew Internet and American Life Project claims that 52 per cent of people complain that junk mail is a big problem and 28 per cent of web users are getting more spam than they did a year ago. Last year 22 per cent of people said the volume of spam they were getting was rising.
However, the poll of US internet users also found that the numbers of people claiming that spam made them use email left has shrunk. Last year, 29 per cent of respondents said they were using less email because of spam, but the number had shrunk to 22 per cent by this year.
Pew researcher Deborah Fallows concluded that spam is becoming like air pollution and traffic congestion and people are "just learning to live with it."
Ms Fallows said that predictions about people abandoning email entirely because of spam were unlikely to come true, possibly because methods of fighting spam are having more of an effect.
According to the research also down was the number of people who said spam made being online unpleasant also fell, from 77 per cent of users to just 67 per cent. Of those surveyed, 53 per cent said spam made them trust email less, down from 62 per cent a year ago.
Anti-spam firms claim they are seeing up to 80 per cent more spam than they did a year ago and the type of spam is changing, with pornographic spam being replaced by phishing scams.
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