Americans unfazed by spam
p2pnet.net OT news:- Many Americans are apparently adopting a laissez-faire attitude towards spam, according to a new report.
It continues to plague the Net as more Americans than ever say they’re getting more spam than in the past, says a Pew Internet & American Life Project data memo. But, “while American internet users report increasing volumes of spam, they also indicate that they are less bothered by it than before,” it says.
Users have, though, also become more sophisticated about dealing with spam.
Fully 71% of email users use filters offered by their email provider or employer to block spam, states Pew, going on:
“Users also report less exposure to pornographic spam, which to many people is the most offensive type ofunsolicited email.”
Nor has online junk mail become a significant deterrent to the use of email, as some observers speculated it might when unsolicited email first began flooding users’ inboxes several years ago, Pew observes.
Nonetheless, “it continues to degrade the integrity of email,” says the report, stating, “Some 55% of email users say they have lost trust in email because of spam.”
But pornographic, or adult content, spam constitutes a case by itself, declares early, stating:
Compared with every other type of spam – for drugs, beauty products, financial opportunities – porn spam elicited intense and visceral reactions from internet users, particularly women. Their personal comments were reflected in the data as well.
For example, people reported that the most bothersome thing about spam was exposure to content that was offensive or obscene in nature. And, three times more respondents reported that porn spam bothered them more than any other kind of spam.
Results from this survey show a steady and dramatic reduction in the porn spam. Now, 52% of email users report having received pornographic spam, down from 63% two years ago and 71% three years ago.
Magnifying the impact of this trend, significantly fewer women (who are most upset by porn spam), than men say they received spam with adult content (46% vs. 58%).
However, adds Pew, while email users report the volume of pornographic spam has decreased, they say there’s been no change in “another troubling form of spam,” namely, phishing, emails designed to trick people into revealing personal financial information.
“In January 2005, we first asked email users if they had received unsolicited email requesting personal financial information such as a bank account number or Social Security number,” says the report, adding, “At that time, 35% of respondents answered yes, a figure that remains almost unchanged, at 36%, today.”
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Tired of being treated like a criminal? They depend on you, not the other way around. Don’t buy their ‘product’. Do bug your local politicians. Use emails, snail-mail, phone calls, faxes, IM, stop them in the street, blog. And if you’re into organizing, organize petitions, organize demonstrations and then turn up on your local political rep’s doorstep, making sure you’ve contacted your local tv/radio station/newspaper in advance. Don’t just complain. Do something!
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