p2pnet.net News :- In Q4 last year, online Canadians received an average of 177 emails per week, almost half of them spam.

That looks bad, but previously, volumes had been doubling every year, averaging 30 spam messages per week in 2001, and 64 in 2002, says a new report.

What caused the sudden drop?

“First of all, new laws such as Canada’s Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) and the U.S.’s CAN-SPAM Act (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act) have forced marketers to re-evaluate their practices and adhere to tougher guidelines, and have elevated awareness of the problems associated with spam,” says Ipsos-Reid.

“Second, Canadians are increasingly installing spam filters, as 77% of online Canadians report that they are using spam-filtering software, up from 41% just two years ago.

“Third, ISPs and organizations have made significant progress in fighting spam through filters1. Finally, Canadians are becoming less willing to open spam, as only 36% open any spam on a given week compared to 40% in 2002, thus contributing to the decreasing effectiveness of this marketing tool among spammers.”

Canadians also now have a more positive attitude towards email than they’ve had in the past years, the report states.

Two-thirds (67%) say they prefer communicating by email than by any other method, a jump from the 58% last year, 56% say email has made them more efficient in their work, and fewer people, “agree that they dread going on vacation or taking days off because of the amount of email they’ll need to respond to upon their return (28% compared to 34% last year)”.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, March 10th, 2005 at 3:36 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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