MAAWG finds users never respond to spam… well, ok maybe sometimes

Does spam actually return any profit to companies that hire spammers to push their product? Believe it or not  it does. Why? Because a decent percentage of individuals actually click spam messages in their inbox.

Recently the MAAWG (Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group) asked North Americans if they had ever responded to a message they believed to be spam (note: we’re assuming their respondents did not have an  email security solution in place). Out of the 800 people surveyed 12% confessed to doing so because they were actually interested in what the spam had to offer. “Big red button pressers” represented 6% of the total respondents, saying that they have clicked on spam “just to see what would happen”, while another 13% said they “unknowingly” clicked spam.

That’s a 31% click-through rate! With such a high rate of success, I think it’s safe to say that spam is going to stick around for a while.

Related posts:

1. Help! Why am I getting spam from myself?
2. Spam hits highest volume ever. Email security still a growing concern.
3. Michael Jackson’s death creates a wave of spam email and malware threats
4. Email Still King; Spam Threats Abound
5. Email security a growing risk in non-English language countries

Tagged as: email, Email Security, email statistics, email threats, email use, exchange spam filter, mailprotector, spam, Spam Filtering, spammers