The results of an eight hundred person survey conducted in December of 2008, by MAAWG (Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group), shows that one third of consumers admitted to responding to a message they suspected might be spam. Add this to the news that 10 Canadian a month fall for Phishing email and you have some serious things to worry about.
However it’s not all bad news, most of the people surveyed admitted to havening anti-virus software installed and that 1/3 state that their computers have never been infected with a virus, and over 80% of the respondents suggest that their PC’s are safe from virus and bot infections. But is this a false confidence in Virus solutions – I mean no one’s perfect right – Day 0 viruses and exploits still exist last I checked (most will never see it coming).
More than half of the respondents said they never click on suspected spam, and almost 80% of people are using spam filters to protect their inbox’s. The interesting fact here for marketer’s it that 25% of users are commonly using a separate more disposable email address from their primary account to protect themselves from potential spam sources. More surprising is the over 60% of users would allow their ISP to scan and remove malware from their PC’s, however I’d be wary of giving that kind of control to a third party – a notification system with an FAQ on the issues would be more my speed.
What have you done recently to earn subscribers trust and get past the email bouncers?
View the full report titled: “Of Course, I Never Reply to Spam – Except Sometimes” (Suggestion: right click on the link and “save as…” due to the file size)
