Has Spam Stabilized?

The Pew Internet and American Life Project have surveyed 1,405 email users on the topic of spam. Inexplicably, they've chosen to publish the results in PDF format.

The poll found that:

While some users are reporting more spam, it can only be inferred that other users are getting less spam. While people are generally annoyed by it, the theme seems to be users have accepted the problem. People seem to feel the situation is not spiraling out of control.

I often see reports by spam appliance manufacturers claiming that spam has increased a relatively large amount over the last time they made a sample. There's at least one major problems with such reports. They almost always derive their data from how much email their system caught.

Even the best spam software or hardware can not detect unwanted messages with 100% accuracy. So, more detected spam may just mean their product is working better than before. Alternately, it could be their product is producing "false positives" and picking up a larger percentage of real messages.

In the end, many users seem to think spam has stabilized at a level where it's annoying, but not unmanageable. Less spam-tolerant service providers, user apathy, an new techniques to block mail may all be to thank.

This is both good news and bad news. While the problem may not be getting more serious, users may be less likely to demand action that would ultimately eliminate the problem.

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