Canadians' inbox nightmare may be coming to an end, a new survey suggests.
For the first time in four years the volume of unsolicited or spam e-mails has declined, according to polling firm Ipsos-Reid's latest Canadian quarterly report on Internet trends.
“Canadians are starting to regain control of their e-mail inboxes,” Ipsos-Reid senior vice president Steve Mossop said.
In 2004, Canadians received an average of 177 e-mails a week. About half of those were spam.
That compares to a per-week average of 197 e-mails a week in 2003, with about 68 per cent of those coming in the form of junk e-mail.
Previous surveys had suggested spam volumes doubled on average annually.
The 2004 decline in spam volumes was linked to the advent of junk-mail filters – about 77 per cent of Canadians reported using filtering software – and the introduction of new laws in Canada and the United States that have made marketers rethink their practices and hold to tougher standards.
Inroads by internet service providers in effectively filtering spam also factored into the improvement.
Finally, the report said, Canadians are also becoming less likely open junk email, making it increasingly ineffective as a marketing tool.
“This year, people are feeling more positive about email as a communications tool and are receptive to legitimate permission-based email marketing,” Mr. Mossop said.
With spam volumes declining, Ipsos-Reid added general attitudes toward e-mail have improved.
About two-thirds of those polled said they prefer communicating by email than any other method. A year earlier, about 58 per cent of respondents picked e-mail as their favoured communications tool.
Fifty-six per cent also said they were more efficient at work because of email, a slight increase from the year before.
As well, fewer people dreaded the return to work after a vacation because of the amount of e-mail to which they would have to respond, according to the findings.
For legitimate marketers, the decline in spam was also good news.
Increasingly, the survey suggests, Canadians are becoming more receptive to legitimate forms of e-mail marketing, with about 79 per cent having registered to receive e-mail from some sites. That figure was up from 77 per cent a year earlier.
Canadians most often register for entertainment and news sites, the report said. Of those surveyed, about 45 had registered for an entertainment website, while 37 per cent had signed up for a news service.
The results were drawn from two separate surveys, one that took responses to 1,000 interviews on-line and another set of 1,000 interviews conducted by telephone.
