|
|
 |
Sign Up: Free Daily Tech E-letter
|
|||||
|
Survey: Spam Hampers Online Shopping
Reuters Monday, February 2, 2004; 3:51 PM
BRUSSELS -- The exponential growth of unsolicited junk e-mail -- spam -- is shaking consumer confidence in the Internet and may hamper growth of the e-economy, officials Monday told a global anti-spam meeting. A survey published by consumers group the Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD) showed 52 percent of respondents were shopping less on the Internet or not at all because of concerns about receiving unsolicited junk e-mail. "It is very clear that the majority of citizens are very troubled by unsolicited commercial e-mails," said the survey, which was released at a spam meeting led by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). "It is also very clear that bona fide businesses are losing money because the disreputable image of spam is making consumers uneasy about engaging in e-commerce." Data from anti-spam software company Brightmail showed spam accounts for half of all e-mails sent. Filtering and clearing up e-mail inboxes is a rising cost for business and consumers. An overwhelming majority of the more than 20,000 respondents to the TACD survey said they either hated or were annoyed by unsolicited junk e-mails and wanted them to be banned. "If you continue at this pace, in five years from now I do not thing the Internet will be very popular," Marc Rotenberg, from civil liberties group the Electronic Privacy Information Center told the anti-spam summit. The OECD is calling for governments to pool resources to tackle the scourge of nuisance offers of sex aids and cheap loans which can be used to spreading malicious viruses. According to the American Chamber of Commerce to the European Union the problem cost EU and U.S. companies more than $11.5 billion a year in lost time and productivity. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development estimates the global economic impact could reach $20 billion. Governments are trying to tackle the problem through a mixture of regulations, code of conducts for business and advanced technical solutions. "Most governments do view the Internet as a key to global economy. Spam has certainly the capacity to interfere with that," Peter Ferguson, chairman of the OECD working party on information security and privacy, told a press conference. Microsoft's Bill Gates published last year an anti-spam manifesto and pledged to fight spam through technical solutions. But the TACD survey showed that only 17 percent of respondents thought their spam filters worked well and 21 percent did not even know whether their e-mail had a filter.
About TechNews.com | Advertising | Contact TechNews.com | Privacy My Profile | Rights & Permissions | Subscribe to print edition | Syndication |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
