Spam messages are increasingly plaguing e-mail inboxes, but more Internet users are accepting them as a fact of life, a new study has found.

Thirty-seven percent of US e-mail users say they are getting more junk in their personal e-mail accounts, and 29 percent see an increase in their work accounts. About half say they have not noticed a change, Senior Research Fellow Deborah Fallows of the Pew Internet and American Life Project said in the study, released on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, 28 percent of Internet users now say that spam is not a problem at all, up from only 16 percent in June 2003.

Only a minority of users are experiencing less spam - 10 percent on their home accounts, 8 percent at work.

The study suggested increased user sophistication was the main reason people are less bothered by spam.

"It's maybe starting to become part of life online," said Susannah Fox, associate director with Pew. "Once something's part of life online, people feel that they should just stop complaining about it and move on, even though people are still annoyed by it."

Less porn and better filters

The study also said that spam with pornography - the type users are most likely to complain about - appears to be dropping in relation to pitches for drugs and financial opportunities as well as scams for sensitive data like passwords, which are both on the rise.

People have also gotten smarter about blocking spam with software filters and using techniques for making their e-mail addresses more difficult for spammers to find. They are also less likely to click on suspicious looking e-mails.

The study did not ask whether the junk messages people were getting more of were in spam folders or regular inboxes.

The telephone survey of 1,492 US adult Internet users, conducted February 15 to March 7, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Source: China Daily/agencies