The Biggest Reasons Readers Hate Spam

By Tom Smith

With their time and resources stretched to the max as never before, IT professionals -- and end users more broadly -- don't need anything else eating into their time and productivity. But spam is doing just that.

A recently fielded InternetWeek.com poll on the impact of spam drew hundreds of respondents, with the highest percentage saying unsolicited e-mails are a major productivity drag.

With that frustration in mind, we air our survey results and some of the most enlightening responses. We also ask you to share your experiences with particular products that are helping you fight spam by replying to this address and put "Spam Killers" in the subject line. We'll analyze your responses for trends and a look at the most effective techniques and products.

Poll Results

As of Thursday morning, 378 readers had responded to our poll, in which we asked about the biggest negative impact of spam in their companies.

• The highest number, 198, or 52 percent, cited lost productivity as employees are distracted and/or deleting messages.
• About 20 percent of respondents, or 75, said legitimate business messages can get lost amid the spam.
• 51 respondents, or 14 percent, said spam, given its extreme volume, consumes bandwidth and other corporate resources.
• About 11 percent, or 40 respondents, said the offensive nature of an increasing number of spam messages has huge negative impacts.
• 9 responses, or 2 percent of the total, said spam's offensive content raises the specter of violations of corporate policy, even though the material obviously isn't being generated by company employees.
• The remaining 1 percent of respondents cited "other" factors.

Readers Have Their Say

Our voluminous reader comments fell into six main categories: the resource drain; technology solutions; the need for good policies; the porn menace; the need for laws/legislation; and the need to just lighten up. Without further ado, here's what our readers had to say (of course, we're not publishing their e-mail addresses).

Spam Wastes Limited Resources

Electronic spam simply consumes bandwidth, resources, time, network availability worldwide. So dump the spam. It does nothing but prevent development and improvements in our network systems that can put people to work that would have an effect on the economy. -- David Duffner, vice president, operations, NWC Corp., Twinsburg, Ohio

Our company receives at least 20 percent to 30 percent of e-mail that's spam. This consumes my time trying to delete without opening messages to be able to concentrate on the legitimate ones. I have opted not to renew many free publications I am offered related to my profession to see if the spam is curtailed. This hurts the legitimate vendors trying to offer quality products to my organization and at the same time it hurts our business because we must try to obtain product information through other means. -- Fernando Guerrero, vice president, telecommunications, One Call Medical, New Jersey

Technology To Fight Technology

I think more companies should be investing in anti-spam technology to decrease the problems listed above. It would make employee communications more effective. There are many such technologies available, like the anti-spam technology from Brightmail. -- Camille Anderson, company name withheld, San Francisco

SpamAssasin works pretty well for me. Yesterday it dumped 35 spams from one of my accounts. It's dumped 14 so far this morning, and that's not counting all the ones with fake dates that end up somewhere else in my spam folder. On the contact Web pages of several Web sites I run, I've added a small script that generates a random 100 fake e-mail addresses each time the page is accessed. It is hoped that the 20 million e-mail address CDs that spammers sell will eventually have only one or two valid e-mail addresses. -- Harold Hallikainen, electronic designer, Dove Systems, San Luis Obispo, Calif.

We outsourced our spam and virus filtering to bigfish.com. Some spam still gets through but it has been dramatically reduced. -- Aaron Dutton, IT systems manager, Stickle Enterprises, Cedar Rapids, Iowa

I want to comment on the article concerning the Ironclad Approach To Thwarting Spam. A manufacturing company of our size (varies from about 100 employees up to 200) can't afford products that start at $20,000. Products like that may be fun to read about but there is no way we would ever be able to justify any solution for this problem in that price range. -- Jim Lloyd, IS manager, Medford Fabrication

Sound Policies And Practices

We have 40 users and receive very little spam. We also have computer-use policies that boil down to "for business only." The limited number of people who receive spam are typically the ones who break the rules and use their computers for personal e-mail and personal Web surfing. Enforcing policy has been easier than deploying additional blocking/filtering tools. The flip side is that our approach to the work/life balance is to ask employees to concentrate on work for 40 hours a week, and we let them have their life the remaining time. They can do all the Web surfing they want at home. That's our "ironclad" approach and it seems to work well. -- Marc (last name withheld), controller, company name withheld, Huntington Beach, Calif.

Roughly 30 percent to 40 percent of the e-mail received here is spam. Most people do not take the time to unsubscribe (if that process actually works) and just delete the message. As a result, they continue to get more and more useless e-mail. -- Scott Hodges, director, software development, company name withheld, Pittsburgh

The Porn Menace

Our 30-person workforce, in a small community bank where the staff is like an extended family, is most affected by the inevitable exposure to crude and shocking spam. I have to believe that the cumulative effect of all this coarse communication is quickly reaching the breaking point for many people. If it continues, it will inevitably lead to people becoming averse to opening their mail clients each morning ... dreading what they know will be an avalanche of leering and suggestive solicitation.

As someone with Libertarian leanings, I usually avoid advocating any laws or restrictions that impinge upon anybody's right to speak and make a living, but spam is so much different than physical mail. If any parent found their young children receiving such marketing in physical mail, they wouldn't rest until it was stopped and, in some instances, the senders prosecuted for their actions. We can't wait much longer, and filters aren't the way to go.

Accountability in the e-mail marketing industry needs to be the watchword. Reasonable steps need to be taken now in order to prevent a future backlash that might swing the pendulum too far in the direction of restraint. Remember that although laws may seem hard to be passed and implemented, they're even harder to get rid of. We must let common sense drive our efforts to limit spam. -- Jack O'Callaghan, systems officer, Martha's Vineyard Co-operative Bank, Vineyard Haven, Mass.

While spam impacts employees' productivity, of greater concern is the pornographic spam received by children and adolescents. Our children do not have the defensive Web skills to minimize spam and are most vulnerable to its content. Naturally, children are and should be curious. They are learning. Spam interjects itself into a powerful and wonderful tool for our children -- e-mail. As such, it obstructs their learning and development in a forum exceedingly difficult for parents, teachers and others to protect. -- Garry Frederickson, managing consultant, Hewlett-Packard, Windsor, Colo.

Legislation/Punishment

Spam is the unwanted use of my bandwidth, server resources, and employee time. Such use is simply theft. I would like federal, where interstate theft occurs, and local law enforcement to pursue those individuals and companies who steal my time and services. Spammers should be required to compensate their victims. Compensation should include cost of services, a reasonable rate for local storage and local computer use, and reimbursement for employee, IT, and management time. -- Dr. Michael Tulloch, principal, Revelations of South Dakota, Alcester, S.D.

I receive approximately 15 spam e-mails daily on my corporate account and find it a nuisance to wade through to find legitimate e-mail. Those that I find particularly offensive, or that persist, I forward to the Federal Trade Commission. I also send a reply to the spammer indicating that and my intent to prosecute for further intrusions. If a human reads the message, that is usually the end of it. One disturbing trend I've seen is for spammers to put dummy unsubscribe links at the bottom of the e-mail, or to provide a postal address for unsubscriptions. If I've been especially vexed and the offer is for a third-party system (AOL, University of Phoenix), I've also complained to them in the hopes that potential loss of advertisers will force spammers to adopt legitimate business practices. -- Lisa Mathews, insurance marketing, ISM Inc., Wilmington, Del.

Lighten Up

You should be grateful for spam. After all, it has spawned a multi-million dollar cottage industry. We have anti-spam groups, software, discussion boards, articles, etc. If lost productivity is a problem, then reading all these articles about spam is a hobby. E-commerce has far more serious issues than spam. It amazes me the amount of ink this issue gets. Why? It's never going to go away. There will always be spam, junk mail, door-to-door salespeople, telemarketers, and billboards. So what?

I get about 200 spam e-mails each day and it takes me less time to delete them than it takes me to handle two telemarketing calls, one door-to-door salesman, 10 pieces of junk mail, or watch two TV commercials. I don't like any of it. But I am glad that I live in a country that supports a free enterprise system. I am happy to pay that price for a strong economy and the freedom of speech.

I am glad you suggest a technological software solution rather than legislation. It is a better approach for those people obsessed with eliminating unwanted e-mail. Legislation will simply cost us all a lot of money and the spammers will simply go offshore. Let technology, the thing that made spam possible in the first place, eliminate it. -- Robert Fleming, president, e-marketing Association, Redondo Beach, Calif.

I do not have a problem with spam, any more than I do receiving catalogs through the U.S. mail. It is a silly issue, a hangover from the days that the Internet was reserved for academics and government types

What's the big deal about spam? How do you learn anything without uninvited information? I find the "scam" like the daily Nigerian business offer silly and stupid and insulting. But, it takes me about 10 minutes to scan the morning e-mail and eliminate them. My time is just as valuable as any one else's -- I get some good ideas from the spam.

I think that we need to be bit more mature about the issue and quit sweating the small stuff. -- James McCain, president, McCain and Associates Inc., Alexandria, Va.

Thanks to these and all the readers who wrote in and took our poll. We'll stay on top of the latest spam developments.