Price of Spam

Deletion of spam is costing the US economy $21.58 billion annually in lost productivity, according to the 2004 National Technology Readiness Survey (NTRS), an annual study tracking consumers' technology opinions and behaviors. This equates to an average three minutes a day per Internet user.

According to the report, produced jointly by the Center for Excellence in Service at the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business and Rockbridge Associates, Inc., this adds up to 22.9 million lost hours a week, or $21.58 billion annually when based on the average working wage.

Professor Roland Rust, Director of the Center for Excellence in Service, points out that this justifies some serious spend on answers to the problem: 'A $1 billion solution doesn't sound so outrageous in the shadow of a $22 billion-a-year problem'.

The survey defined spam as 'unsolicited e-mail from unknown sources sent to several e-mail addresses simultaneously' and found that 78% of online adults receive spam on a daily basis and 11% receive 40 or more spam a day. In the past 12 months, 4% purchased a product or service advertised in a spam e-mail. More than two-thirds (68%) sweep their accounts clean of spam at least once a week but a significant proportion (13%) delete spam no more than once a month.

Currently, private companies such as American Online, Yahoo and Microsoft are working to develop solutions to spam including researching ways to verify that the address listed on an e-mail is authentic; and state and federal legislation is attempting its own measures, including fines up to $25,000, and up to 10 years in prison for convicted spammers.

'The problem with these measures is that generally the private solutions being developed are not universal and the legislative ones are not enforceable', according to Charles Colby, President of Rockbridge. 'While nobody really wants to change the freewheeling nature of the Internet, we're suggesting that there be greater collective impetus to invest in fundamental, maybe even drastic, changes'.

The 2004 NTRS also looked at the development of m-commerce, e-government trends, e-services, e-health, and overall American consumer technology readiness / willingness to adopt. Results are based on telephone interviews with 1,000 US citizens aged 18+ in October 2004. A summary of key findings is available at www.rockresearch.com/press_releases/NTRS_2004.pdf

The University of Maryland's Center for Excellence in Service is online at www.rhsmith.umd.edu/ces/

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.

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