It had to start happening at some point

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

Funny, I gave a talk a month ago on this. Time to act.

Dave


Delivered-To: dfarber+ () ux13 sp cs cmu edu
Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2003 14:44:48 -1000
From: Alex Salkever <alex_salkever () businessweek com>
Subject: For IP -- It had to start happening at some point
To: dave () farber net


Survey: Spam Is Starting to Hurt E-Mail, Erode People's Trust
in the Internet World

   WASHINGTON, Oct. 22 (AScribe Newswire) -- The recent
explosion of e-mail spam is beginning to take its toll on the
Internet world. A new nationwide survey shows that 25
percent of America's e-mail users say they are using e-mail
less because of spam. Within that group, most say that spam
has reduced their overall use of e-mail in a big way.


   Further, more than half of e-mail users say that spam has
made them less trusting of e-mail in general. One of their
fears is that legitimate e-mails might be turned away by
filters designed to stop spam. Another is that they'll
simply miss incoming e-mail from friends, family, or
colleagues amid the clutter of spam in their inboxes.


   A new report entitled "Spam: Hurting e-mail and degrading
the Internet environment," by the Pew Internet & American
Life Project, includes scores of stories gathered in a
Web-survey by the Washington-based Telecommunications
Research & Action Center about how spam has affected
people's experience with e-mail and changed their views about
the value of e-mail.


   "People just love e-mail, and it really bothers them that
spam is ruining such a good thing," said Deborah Fallows,
Senior Research Fellow at the Pew Internet & American Life
Project and author of the report. "People resent spam's
intrusions; they are angered by its deceptions; and they are
offended by much of the truly disgusting content."


   Here are some other key figures from a national phone
survey of 1,380 Internet users conducted by the Pew Internet
Project in June. The survey has a margin of error of plus or
minus three points:


   - 75 percent of e-mail users are bothered that they can't
stop the flow of spam, no matter what they do


   - 70 percent of e-mail users say spam has made being online
unpleasant or annoying.


   - 55 percent of e-mail users say they get so many unwanted
e-mail messages in their personal account that it's hard to
get to the ones they want


   - 30 percent of e-mail users are concerned that their
filtering devices may block incoming e-mail that is
important to them.


   Despite their dismay, most Internet users keep the issue
of spam in perspective. For them, spam takes its place next
to life's other annoyances, like telemarketing
calls. Further, many users believe they know how to behave
in a spam-saturated environment. The most popular way of
dealing with spam is to simply click "delete." More than 2/3
have made a more aggressive move, clicking to "remove me"
from future mailings, although many voice concern that doing
so only leads to more spam.


   And most e-mail users are judicious about guarding their
e-mail addresses in hopes of avoiding spam.  A minority
employ their own filters, either in work or personal
accounts.


   At the same time, there is evidence in the survey that
enough Americans respond to offers in unsolicited e-mail to
sustain spam as a viable, lucrative endeavor. Some 7 percent
of e-mailers - more than eight million people - report they
have ordered a product or service that was offered in an
unsolicited e-mail. Fully a third of e-mail users say they
have clicked on a link in unsolicited commercial e-mail to
get more information.


   The report argues that Americans are somewhat fuzzy when
it comes to defining spam, an issue of critical importance
to legislators as they tackle anti-spam legislation in
Congress. There is consensus that spam is "unsolicited
commercial e-mail from a sender you don't know." However,
messages with religious, political, or charity fundraising
content are spam to some users, but not others. And users
have varying answers about how businesses should interpret
their prior relationship with customers. There is not a
clear consensus among users about the circumstances under
which they are "known" by a seller or "have a relationship
with" a firm.


   "The general findings are striking, but inside the data
are even more disturbing details about the reactions women
and parents have with pornographic spam," said
Fallows. "Pornographers deserve a special place in hell as
far as they are concerned."


   The Pew Internet & American Life Project is a non-profit,
non-partisan research organization funded by the Pew
Charitable Trusts to examine the social impact of the
Internet. The spam report is posted at
http://www.pewinternet.org.


   The Telecommunications Research & Action Center (TRAC) is
a nonprofit organization that promotes the interests of
residential telecommunications customers. Their stories
cited in the report come from a compilation of more than
4,000 first-person narratives about spam that were solicited
since September of 2002. As part of a campaign to fight
unsolicited commercial e-mail, TRAC invited Internet users to
submit stories about their personal experiences with spam.

   -30-



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