Spam 'turning people off e-mail'
The waves of spam flooding into inboxes is beginning to turn people off e-mail, a study has found.
Some 25% of people said they were using e-mail less because they were receiving so much junk, according to US think tank Pew Internet.
But there were signs that spam works, with enough Americans taking up offers in unsolicited e-mails to justify the cost of sending thousands of messages.
More than half of all e-mails are estimated to be junk.
For the survey, the researchers interviewed 1,380 internet users in June.
Perhaps more surprising, the researchers found that unsolicited e-mails actually work.
A third said they had clicked on a link in a spam message to get more information, while 7% said they had ordered a product or service advertised.
The percentage of junk messages has grown at an phenomenal rate over the past 12 months
A year ago, spam accounted for just 2.3% of all e-mails, according to experts. By May this year, the figure was 55%.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3209189.stm
The waves of spam flooding into inboxes is beginning to turn people off e-mail, a study has found.
Some 25% of people said they were using e-mail less because they were receiving so much junk, according to US think tank Pew Internet.
But there were signs that spam works, with enough Americans taking up offers in unsolicited e-mails to justify the cost of sending thousands of messages.
More than half of all e-mails are estimated to be junk.
For the survey, the researchers interviewed 1,380 internet users in June.
Perhaps more surprising, the researchers found that unsolicited e-mails actually work.
A third said they had clicked on a link in a spam message to get more information, while 7% said they had ordered a product or service advertised.
The percentage of junk messages has grown at an phenomenal rate over the past 12 months
A year ago, spam accounted for just 2.3% of all e-mails, according to experts. By May this year, the figure was 55%.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3209189.stm
