• by Masha Geller , September 19, 2002

A majority of U.S. Web users are able to tell the difference between permission-based email marketing and spam, suggests a new poll, by Harris Interactive Inc. - unsolicited commercial Email appears to be on the rise, annoying Web users and clogging corporate email systems.

Fifty-nine percent of respondents define "legitimate" email marketing as email products or services they've specifically requested information about. They define spam as being sent without their request, even if they know the company sending it.

Eighty-six percent of respondents said they had requested to receive email marketing messages, and 71% had made purchases based on such marketing.

A recent survey found that 79% of respondents said they had neutral or positive impressions of legitimate email marketing.

The survey polled 2,837 adult Internet users and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.

Research firm eMarketer has found that the average click-through rate for this year is 1.8%, down from 3.2% last year.

Digital Impact says an average response rate of almost 8%.