Global Spam Survey Asks Consumers Is Spam a Nuisance, Environmentally Polluting or eTerrorism?

Watsonville, CA (PRWEB) September 19, 2007 -- Today, SpamFrit.org (www.SpamFrit.org), the consumer-based spam-free initiative, issued a request to consumers to complete the first global survey on their attitudes towards Unsolicited Bulk Email (spam) - the survey will run from September 19 through September 29, 2007. take the survey (http://surveys.supersurvey.com/survey-bin/surveys/s29639.pl).

The survey results are to be made available to brand managers, corporations and marketing companies to help them consider the broader implications of unsolicited bulk email, as being socially unacceptable, and, bordering on eTerrorism, as consumers are flooded with billions of name-brands spammed daily, at a cost of $11-billion to the U.S a year. Learn about spam's carbon footprint (http://www.spamfrit.org/mktgCarbonFootprint.html)

The SpamFrit survey further asks U.S residents whether they believe the Can-Spam Act is working, or whether a stronger, and possibly global treaty is needed to deal with the ever-growing threat. The survey results are to be distributed to international business leaders, marketing companies, brand managers and U.S. Senators.

"It's time for the consumer to push back," commented Executive Director of SpamFrit, Peter Mackeonis, continuing, "Corporations, advertising agencies and brand managers have largely turned their backs on the issues of unsolicited bulk email, because they don't see it as a real issue. Their email is pre-screened by spam filters, so their staff seldom receives spam, and they can't tell when the filters have deleted genuine email. We know that they know that their brands are being used by spammers, as our SpamFrit.org servers see show repeated visits from these name-brand corporations (http://www.spamfrit.org/theslist.html) within hours of them being mentioned in our press releases."

Some of the issues covered in SpamFrit's 30-question survey (http://surveys.supersurvey.com/survey-bin/surveys/s29639.pl) include: damage caused by spam, time spent on spam, accidentally deleted email, email special offers, brand names in spam, the difference between spam and wanted email, purchasing attitudes and habits and spam's carbon footprint.

SpamFrit's position on spam is:

(1) That the billions of spam email a day have a massive carbon footprint, in addition to social consequences and have a price tag of $11 billion a year to consumers and U.S. industry alike with volumes growing (http://www.spamfrit.org/spamstats.html) yearly.

(2) That relying on spam filters is not the way to go: an attitude of, "If spam is deleted by filtering software, and no one sees it, was it really received?" provides safe cover for the spammers and a market for the corporations that provide hundreds of millions of dollars of 'spam-filtering' software and support to consumers yearly.

(3) That brand managers of Coca-Cola, Viagra, Tylenol, Pepsi-Cola, Nike, Starbucks, Burger King, Target, Harpo Productions, Wal-Mart, Oreo Cakesters, Xerox, Rachel Ray, Victoria's Secrets, Applebee's, VirginAmerica, Google, eBay and NBC must be aware that their billion-dollar-brand names (http://www.spamfrit.org/theslist.html) are constantly being featured in spam: we believe that these companies need to become 'socially responsible' and act to stop their names being used in this way.

(4) That the internet in general is slowed dramatically by the billions of spam sent daily to random, non-existent email addresses, which are attempted to be delivered up to three times before finally being dropped as undeliverable.

(5) That spam is an international issue that needs to be enforced by laws, and should be considered eTerrorism: the U.S. Can-Spam Act has not stopped spam, and, in some ways, has become a spammer's charter; as it imposes the burden on consumers of having to react to 'unsubscribe' links on the email that they do not wish to receive.

SpamFrit is certain that consumer engagement can make a difference. "The time has come for the global consumer to became involved with the global spam issues; our survey is a prelude to an international petition to stop unsolicited bulk email in every country," said Mackeonis. He concluded, "Our business is to track down spammers and report them to the authorities. Perhaps our proactive stance against spam has already captured spammers' attention, he adds, because, even though we have released six news releases in as many months, the SpamFrit servers have not received one piece of spam."

The survey can be taken at: http://surveys.supersurvey.com/survey-bin/surveys/s29639.pl

For more information on SpamFrit activities, Executive Director, Peter Mackeonis, can be contacted via email at peter @ spamfrit.org. He is scheduled to speak at Online Market World at the Moscone Center in San Francisco on October 4th 2007 (see details (http://www.onlinemarketworld.com/index.php?page=content/speakers/peter_mackeonis)) and is soon to be a moderator of a forum on Ed Begley's ecologically aware site www.FixThePlanet.com

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