Symantec Survey Reveals 80 Percent of Singapore Consumers Believe Spam is Wasting their Time

Majority Cite Spam as Frustrating, Time-Consuming, and Difficult to control

SINGAPORE -- 9 December, 2003 - Symantec, the world leader in Internet security today announced that 80 percent of consumers who receive spam believe that it places a burden on their individual time, is frustrating and difficult to control. According to a survey of 500 internet users conducted for Symantec by Forbes Research, more than half of the respondents (74.9 percent) expressed the view that spam can be harmful to users, and over three quarters (74.3 percent) of respondents who receive spam felt it was at least somewhat intrusive to their privacy. The majority (80 percent) of respondents felt that dealing with spam was time-consuming, with 77.8 percent spending up to 10 minutes per day dealing with spam while 17.8 percent spent 10-20 minutes a day dealing with spam.

"At best, spam is annoying; at worst, it's objectionable and a real threat to productivity and resources," said Ross Wilson, Symantec's Senior Regional Director, Asia Pacific. "As consumers face a steady increase in spam emails every day, there is an urgent need to raise awareness of how to deal with this growing problem if users are to enjoy the benefits of online computing," he added.

The survey conducted by Forbes Research, interviewed 500 Singapore Internet users between the ages of 12 and 60. The survey measured Singapore consumers' experience with spam as well as their concerns about receiving unsolicited email.

"This survey is timely, as many countries including Singapore are looking at the best ways of dealing with spam," said Dr. Chan Wai Ming, Forbes Research's Managing Director. "This study will provide an invaluable insight to consumers, industry watchers and policymakers alike".

Key findings of the survey
According to the survey, 81.1 percent of respondents receive spam. Of this group, 53.3 percent receive at least 10 spam emails per week. Although slightly less, there is a significant percentage (42.8 percent) who receive less than 10 spam emails per week. Among respondents who receive 10-50 emails per week (about 200 respondents), many of them (53.2 % percent) receive 10-50 spam emails, implying that the majority of their emails are spam. Similarly, among respondents who receive 101-500 emails per week, 29.8 percent stated that the bulk of their emails were spam.

Of the respondents, 53.7 percent stated that they received spam at home, 6.1 percent at work, while 21.3 percent received spam both at work and at home. Another 73.4 percent of respondents with children under the age of 18 noted that they are concerned or very concerned about their children reading spam.

Respondents also cited their specific concerns about spam. The most commonly cited concern is that spam is frustrating (37.9 percent). The second is that spam is time-consuming (26.7 percent), and 17.7 percent expressed concern that spam might contain malicious code. Privacy concern (1 percent) and unwanted content (1 percent) such as pornography are the least commonly cited concerns. Of the respondents, 82.8 percent indicated that the volume of spam they are receiving would remain at its current level or increase; while only 17.2 percent said it is decreasing. While agreeing that spam is a current and growing problem, 74.7 percent did not know if they had a spam filter in place while 7.7 percent indicated that this service was provided by their ISPs and 9.3 percent employed their own spam filter.

About Forbes Research
Forbes Research is an independent market research company operating in Asia for the past 19 years. The company is a provider of consumer insights and opinions to businesses, utilising a wide range of qualitative and quantitative research techniques. It is also a leading provider of customer satisfaction measurement, benchmarking and service quality evaluation services. For more information, visit www.forbes.com.sg or call + 65 63231123.

About Symantec
Symantec, the world leader in Internet security technology, provides a broad range of content and network security software and appliance solutions to individuals, enterprises and service providers. The company is a leading provider of client, gateway and server security solutions for virus protection, firewall and virtual private network, vulnerability management, intrusion detection, Internet content and email filtering, remote management technologies and security services to enterprises and service providers around the world. Symantec's Norton brand of consumer security products is a leader in worldwide retail sales and industry awards. Headquartered in Cupertino, Calif., Symantec has worldwide operations in 36 countries. For more information, please visit www.symantec.com.sg. For more information on dealing with spam, please visit http://www.symantec.com/spamwatch/

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