Surfers get smart to spam

Surfers are getting wise to unsolicited emails - with almost two-thirds deleting spam messages without reading them, a new study has revealed. According to email marketing company Double Click, 65 per cent of consumers are deleting spam without reading it. Only 4 per cent (compared to 18 per cent in 2001) read spam messages to determine whether it might be of interest to them. As well as using bulk folders, 36.1 per cent of consumers use a report spam function that comes with their email program, 15.9 per cent have downloaded spam filtering software and 13.7 per cent have created a second email address for making online purchases. "The encouraging news from this year's study is that consumers are clearly differentiating between spam and legitimate commercial email," said Scott Knoll, vice president and general manager of DoubleClick's marketer solutions division. A separate study has revealed that spam promoting medical treatments now accounts for more than 10 per cent of junk email. Flying Null, a UK technology company, reports that in almost all cases it was possible to purchase drugs online in response to spam without any medical checks or advice. According to Flying Null, sex therapies such as Viagra was the most common type, accounting for two-fifths of all drug and medical treatment related spam.