The spam and spyware scourge was the focus of one panel Wednesday sponsored by the Congressional Internet Caucus. A January 2005 Stanford report noted that last year the average user spent nearly 30 minutes per day dealing with computer problems and spam. That's a full three weeks of lost production per year or seven full days of work per year. At the forum Ari Schwartz, of the tech think tank the Center for Democracy and Technology, told a story about his father-in-law struggling with this issue over the holidays. He said to Ari: "There's really something wrong with this industry when my new computer is all locked up due to this stuff."
Jules Polonetsky of America Online provided more factoids. He said that surveys show 53% of Americans feel they have a spyware problem with their computers; 95% did not give permission to allow this type of program on their computer and 77% did not know how to use the spam/spyware blockers. Seems like we in industry need to do a much better job educating folks about the problem or we could lose frustrated folks like Ari's father-in-law.
Posted by Jim Hock
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