Thursday, April 14, 2005

Study: Users Learning To Live With Spam

The Pew Internet & American Life Project has released another study, this time, showing that Internet users are learning to live with the near continuous bombardment of spam email. The survey, conducted between January 13 and February 9, showed that 28% of users with personal email said they are getting more spam than a year ago, with 22% getting less. 53% of users said that spam has made them less trusting of email this year, versus 62% a year ago. The users are reporting less annoyance at spam, although figures are still very high, with 67% saying spam has made being online unpleasant or annoying, compared with 77% a year ago. Not surprisingly, more than half of the internet users (52%) surveyes complain that spam is a big problem. The survey also found that 35% of users reported receiving emails "phishing" for personal financial information, with 2% actually responding and providing their personal financial details to those emails.