[BC] spam

[Ernie Belanger]

>From Media Mix newsletter

Why sp at m works
It's always been a perplexing question. Why - - when everyone purports to hate it so much - - does so much of it keep piling up in our e-mail inboxes? A study done by the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland found that on average Americans receive nearly 20 sp at m messages a day. No one wants it. In fact, they are willing to pay handsomely to avoid it. IDC projects that anti-sp at m product and service revenues will climb close to 2 billion by 2008. 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 it are supporting the practice by buying products from sp at mmers. The survey found that 11% of users purchase products and services from sp at m e-mails - - even though 9% of users have lost money to e-mail sc at mmers! Even if they don't buy products, 39% of users admit to using embedded links within sp at m, other than the unsubscribe link. Using links within ju e-mail not only alerts the sp at mmer that the e-mail address is active, it can direct users to websites that install viruses, spyware and other malicious code. Not surprisingly, 57% of respondents who used sp at m links say they receive more sp at m. 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 sp at mmers. There is only one effective way to stop it. As Marcel Nienhuis of the Radicati Group says, "If people stop buying products from sp at m, it would probably go away."