Who gets spammed?

Abstract

Policy makers, Internet service providers and software venders are trying to develop technological, regulatory, and social solutions to eradicate the menace of spamming. Spam forum has conducted an field experiment to determine whether spam is randomly distributed or targeted to a specific section of society. It was observed that spam rates was higher for persons aged 30 with declared interest in some products or services than for those with no declared interest aged 15. It was also observed that spam was systematically targeted at consumer segments that relatively make more online purchases. The spam rate also depends upon online email service provider as it was highest in Hotmail account followed in decreasing order by Lycos, and Excite accounts. There is need of the hour to conduct extensive experiments using some of the email accounts to engage in online transactions, and online purchase to observe the impact of these activities on the spam rate.