Consumers are choking on mass e-mail—and anger toward it
Consumers are becoming increasingly upset about unsolicited e-mails, with 80% of survey respondents saying they find spam annoying, up from 49% two and a half years ago, says a new survey from Harris Interactive.
As a result, 74% of consumers think spamming—sending large quantities of unsolicited e-mails--should be outlawed. The idea is not as far-fetched as some might think, Harris points out, noting that consumer ire resulted in a law regulating fax marketing. “This support for banning mass spamming is found among every demographic group. Between 70% and 80% of all age groups, all income groups, both sexes, blacks, whites and Hispanics, Republicans and Democrats all favor such a ban,” the Harris survey reports. “Unsolicited mass faxing was banned. Can mass spamming be far behind?”
As consumers’ aggravation with mass e-mail marketing has risen, consumers have had a tendency to lump even legitimate e-mail marketing with spam. The good news for retailers is that they are not on consumers’ radar screens as spammers. The largest culprits in consumers’ eyes are pornographers, cited as annoying by 91% of e-mail users, mortgage and loan marketers, cited by 79%, investment brokers, 68%,and real estate marketers, 61%.
But while anger with e-mail marketing has gone up, other aggravations have gone down, the poll says, especially in areas of page down
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