The Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-Mail (CAUCE) and e-research company Survey.com have partnered to track spam
statistics and provide hard data to legislators and regulatory officials.
The first survey marks the beginning of the UCE Research Initiative, an
ongoing relationship between CAUCE and Survey.com. The study, conducted by
Survey.com’s team of analysts, not surprisingly found little love for spam in
the Internet world.
Internet users don’t mind receiving e-mail advertisements from companies with
whom they already have a relationship — 51 percent appreciated such ads and
another 25 percent were neutral on the practice.
But those surveyed were
overwhelmingly negative about receiving unsolicited e-mail advertisements
from companies with whom they had no pre-existing relationship.
“This study bears out what we’ve known for some time, which is that the best
way to use e-mail as a marketing tool is to first build a relationship with a
consumer, then use e-mail to cement that relationship,” said John Mozena,
CAUCE co-founder and vice president and a marketing industry professional.
“Blasting e-mail advertisements out to an unqualified list of unidentified
addresses is just a recipe for angry recipients.”
“We are very concerned about spam and fully support CAUCE’s efforts to
control this mounting problem,” said Michael Bach, CEO and president of
Survey.com. “Spammers make it harder for us to deliver the accurate, timely
information that our partners and clients depend on.”
More than 40 percent of recipients say they refuse to do business with
companies that send unsolicited commercial e-mail, and virtually the same
percentage block future e-mail from that sender.
More than 60 percent of
recipients say that junk e-mail is “not useful,” compared to less than three
percent who consider such mail “somewhat useful” or “totally useful.”
More than three-quarters of respondents felt that forged headers should be
made illegal and valid contact information should be required, while about
two-thirds felt that Internet Service Providers should have the power to
refuse to accept such messages.
“CAUCE will assist Survey.com in asking the right questions and in getting
their results to the people who need it,” said Mozena. “We have needed hard
data on the spam wars for some time, and Survey.com is the perfect partner to
help us gather and disseminate that data.”
The spam survey is available here.
