Spam ads 'a waste of time'

Research has finally proved that spam advertising is a complete waste of time.

Researchers at the Technion Technology Institute in Israel have proved that the longer a list of recipients a message has, the less likely it is to be read.

The team used a fake account and message to send people a simple question about a faculty within the institute.

They found that the more people who are copied on to a message, the less likely it is to be looked at. Spam lists contain thousands of names, and are therefore usually ignored.

When the question was sent to just one person it elicited a response 50 per cent of the time. Sending it to multiple recipients garnered only a 16 per cent response.

When messages were sent to a single person, a third sent back 'very helpful' replies. But only 16 per cent of those on a multiple list replied with anything useful.

Researcher Greg Barron suggested that web advertisers should heed the survey. "If you are trying to get hits on a website, using an automatic email sent to many people might not be the way to go," he said.