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Survey: Spam threatens death of e-mail, 'the killer app'

By Charles Bermant
Special to the Seattle Times

E-mail this article Print this article Search archive Other links "Spam — How it is hurting email and degrading life on the Internet" on Pew Internet & American Life Project site

"Spam has always been out there," said Pew senior fellow Deb Fallows, primary author of the report. "But it didn't start to really bother people until it reached critical mass and started to interfere with people's lives. And every month it becomes more voluminous."

Spam, the report concludes, "threatens the bedrock quality of e-mail, user's trust in the system." One-quarter of survey participants say spam has reduced their use of e-mail, while some are ready to abandon use of the technology.

One statistic demonstrates spam's scope and why it is in danger of "killing the killer app" of e-mail: Approximately half of the estimated 30 million messages sent each day qualify as spam.

Keith Kirkwood, owner of Bainbridge Technical Systems on Bainbridge Island, said that the increased presence of spam can make people feel they are being attacked in their own home.

"Spam has changed the way you handle your e-mail," he said. "It's become more of a chore to read through your e-mail, and there is an element of fear there. Sometimes people just change their e-mail addresses because of spam, and this is like having to move into a new house to get away from a nasty neighbor."

Pew is a nonprofit research group based in Washington, D.C., which presents its findings as a public service. The report is a compilation of two surveys conducted in the last year. A national telephone survey of 2,200 adults was conducted in June from numbers generated through a random telephone dialer. A second survey of 4,000 started in September 2002. Fallows conceded there was some irony in the fact that the information was gathered through unsolicited phone calls but said that people were willing to participate once they determined the query was not a sales call.

Among the findings:

• While many people employ spam-fighting software or services, a significant number just delete the junk mail as it arrives.

• Spam is more of a problem for personal accounts than work accounts, due to the installation of filters and anti-spam software by corporations.

• People who complain the loudest about spam tend to be pessimists, and also complain loudly about life's other annoyances.

• Women are more disturbed by the obscenities and deceptions found in much spam.

• Younger people are more tolerant of spam, and less strict in its definition.

Fallows said that e-mail obscenities often prompted visceral reactions.

"One thing that astonished me was the vehement reaction to pornography," she said. "If we could do away with the porn, it would go a long way to ratcheting down the noise level and returning to a level of tolerance.

"Everyone hates spam. As a result, groups who never worked together are pooling their intellect in order to fight the problem. And it has become a hot issue in Congress."

Fallows said that the conflict between spam and legitimate e-mail marketing is one of the biggest issues. "There is a natural tension here, and everyone is attempting to walk the line," she said.

And while she admits that spammers are likely to flout any established rules, she feels strong anti-spam statutes can help the situation.

"You've got to have rules," she said. "You may never catch spammers, but if you do you can get them for something."

There may be at least one area where the report is incorrect. Walter Taucher, president of Corporate Computer in Seattle, said some days a whopping 87 percent of the mail coming through his company's servers qualify as spam. He adds that his business model has changed: Once clients paid him to deliver mail; now they pay him to prevent its delivery.

"Many people are using filters or tagging spam for deletion," he said. "But they end up deleting good messages, so a lot of real communication is getting lost."

Copyright © 2003 The Seattle Times Company