WASHINGTON (CBS.MW) -- Who buys that stuff the spammers try to sell? It turns out that 8 percent of consumers say they have bought something promoted to them by spam, according to a survey by Mailshell, a company that markets anti-spam software.
Fifty-three percent of consumers said they consider spam as "any e-mail sent by any company with whom you have no prior relationship." Also considered spam are unwanted jokes, fund-raising solicitations, and political comments "sent by someone you know." The survey indicated that 62 percent of respondents believe that making spam illegal would help reduce the problem. Spam's next frontier: wireless It's already happening in Japan. A U.S. executive with the Japanese wireless company NTT DoCoMo (DCM:
news,
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profile) told the Federal Trade Commission's spam hearings that 90 million unsolicited text messages a day are sent to subscribers. Bad as this may sound, Jiro Murayama said that's actually a reduction from 150 million a day. "Spam to wireless is likely to become a social problem in the U.S. as well," he said -- a point that Sprint PCS (PCS:
news,
chart,
profile) hints at in its television advertising campaign. Sending legitimate wireless ads, for which marketers pay the carriers, is called mobile marketing. "It's scheduled to take off," said Jim Manis, chairman of the Mobile Marketing Association, at the Washington hearings. According to IDG News Service, U.S. users will soon be able to download discount coupons for coffee or other products by calling a number they may see on a billboard. Hotel sites catching on Hotel chains' branded Web sites are becoming much more powerful a tool for generating room reservations to the companies' central offices than are general travel Web sites. A quarterly industry report by TravelClick said Internet reservations placed via hotels' booking offices rose 75 percent in 2002, compared to 2001. And 13 percent of all hotel reservations came through such branded sites as www.marriott.com, while 6 percent came from third-party Web sites. Baseball hopes to ride e-ticket skyrocket The online ticket sales business is being very, very good for Major League Baseball. Teams expect to sell 7.5 million tickets that way this year, and a substantial number of them will be re-sales. At least eight teams allow re-sales, according to USA Today. Teams make more money when ticket holders actually show up, naturally. So it's in the teams' interest to help possible no-shows unload the tickets. You can listen to Internet Daily, too. Today's episode: How you can try to slam some spam. Call your local CBS station for broadcast times of Internet Daily on the radio in your city. You can also receive Internet Daily by e-mail. Click to start the sign-up process. If you have a problem, e-mail Frank Barnako. Frank Barnako is a vice president of CBS.MarketWatch.com, and is based in Washington. He has owned shares of AOL Time Warner since 1995.
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