25 May 2004
1. The Survey on Unsolicited E-mails was an ad-hoc survey commissioned by IDA to Precision Research in October 2003 to understand the nature and extent of e-mail spam in Singapore. For the purpose and intent of this report, "Unsolicited E-mails" is referred to as "Spam".
2. The target respondents of the survey were Singapore citizens and PRs aged 15 years and above, who were e-mail users at the time of the survey.
3. A total of 1,005 e-mail users from 1,549 households were interviewed face-to-face at their homes. Fieldwork was conducted between 17th October 2003 and 17th November 2003. The findings were extrapolated to the whole resident population of Singapore aged 15 years and above.
4. It is estimated that there are a total of 1.4 million e-mail users in Singapore aged between 15 years and above. Almost all e-mail users have received spam (94%). For the average spam recipient1, spam accounted for almost 1 out of every 3 e-mails received per day.
60% of e-mail users cited computer viruses as their most important concern when using the Internet, while 24% of e-mail users cited spam as their most important concern.
5. The majority of spam recipients (71%) spent less than 5 minutes per day on handling spam.
6. The annual productivity loss due to handling spam (e.g. opening the spam e-mails and deleting them) by e-mail users in Singapore is estimated at about $1.9 million per month or approximately $23 million per year
2. This works out to $16 per e-mail user per year.
7. On average, spam from overseas-based companies formed about 77% of the total spam received.
8. Slightly over half of spam recipients claimed that they had knowledge of how to protect their e-mail against spam, 36% claimed that they were knowledgeable while 22% said that they had adequate knowledge only.
9. The majority of spam recipients (74%) were aware of at least one anti-spam technology i.e. filtering function
3 or independent anti-spam software
4. Of this percentage, spam recipients who were aware of filtering function outnumbered those who were aware of independent anti-spam software by 3 to 1 (72% versus 24%). However, only about one-third of spam recipients who were aware of anti-spam technology (36%) used at least one of the technologies.
10. 58% of spam recipients who claimed that they were not knowledgeable about protecting their e-mails against spam were also unaware of anti-spam technologies. In comparison, only 16% of spam recipients who claimed they were knowledgeable about protecting their e-mails against spam were unaware of anti-spam technologies.
12. The majority of e-mail users (81%) disliked receiving spam.
13. The majority of e-mail users (69%) perceived that the number of spam they received has been increasing over the years.
14. The majority of e-mail users (80% - 1.14m e-mail users) be it spam or non-spam recipients felt that the sending of unsolicited e-mails should be prohibited unless it takes place within an existing customer-business relationship or these e-mails provide a genuine unsubscribe option.
15. In summary, spam is becoming a major problem in Singapore affecting 94% of e-mail users. Spam is costing Singaporean e-mail users as much as $23 million per annum in productivity loss. The public awareness on how to protect their e-mail against spam is low. Majority of e-mail users dislike spam and perceived spam to be a growing problem.
1 Spam recipients are e-mail users who have ever received spam. The number of spam recipients in Singapore is estimated to be 1.33 million (or 38.7% of Singapore resident population).
2 Cost of spam = Time spent on handling spam x salary per hour.
3 Filtering function refers to a service provided by e-mail service providers along with your e-mail account, which automatically filters unsolicited e-mail when you select to use it.
4 Independent software refers to commercial software that helps filter unsolicited e-mails, e.g., Cloudmark Spam Net, Mailwasher, Spamkiller.
