July 19, 2005

If you've aways wondered why spam keeps growing and why does it keep filling your email box everyday, its because people buy from spammers.

A study done by the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland found that on average Americans receive nearly 20 spam messages a day.

No one wants spam. In fact, they are willing to pay handsomely to avoid it. IDC projects that anti-spam product and service revenues will climb close to $2 billion by 2008.

Yet the spam keeps coming. Why? According to a new survey of nearly 800 end users, comprising 34% corporate business users and 66% consumers, by Mirapoint and the Radicati Group, the answer is simple.

Many of the people who claim to hate spam are supporting the practice by buying products from spammers.

The survey found that 11% of users purchase products and services from spam e-mails — even though 9% of users have lost money to e-mail scammers!

Even if they don't buy products, 39% of users admit to clicking on embedded links within spam, other than the unsubscribe link.

Clicking links within spam e-mail not only alerts the spammer that the e-mail address is active, it can direct users to Web sites that install viruses, spyware and other malicious code. Not surprisingly, 57% of respondents who click on spam links say they receive more spam.

The findings are even more perplexing than a study conducted this year by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, which found that 6% of Americans online buy from spammers.

There is only one effective way to stop spam. As Marcel Nienhuis of the Radicati Group says, "If people stop buying products from spam, spam would probably go away."

Source: eMarketer