Consumer attitudes to spam

The Pew Internet & American Life Project just released details of their latest report on spam and its impact on consumer perceptions of email.

As always there is good news and bad news.

Less people are bothered by spam, even though they see more of it in their inboxes. The authors explain this paradox by noting that people are seeing less of those kinds of spam emails that tend to offend more. Less porn spam, more stock spam.

People are also more proactive about controlling spam through filters and similar techniques. Good stuff.

As a result, it appears the spam plague has less of a debilitating effect on email habits than in previous years. Fewer respondents claimed spam reduced their email use or made using email annoying or unpleasant.

But "fewer" doesn't mean "few." For example, 55% of respondents still reported that spam made them less trusting of email in general.

Worst of all, 4% ordered a product or service from a spam mail and a whopping 23% clicked on a spam link to get more information. As long as people keep responding to spam, there is no reason for spammers to stop. There is still a huge education deficit here.

So while the trend is good in terms of restoring trust and usability to the inbox, there is clearly still a long, long way to go to solving the spam problem.

More email marketing statistics | Tags: email marketing, spam, email statistics

Permalink | May 24, 2007 | 0 comment(s)
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