• by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, May 23, 2007

Spam's on the rise, but U.S. Web users are becoming increasingly nonchalant about it, according to a new report by the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

The report, based on a survey of 2,200 adults, found that spam appeared to be surging in personal accounts; 37% of the respondents said spam had increased in their personal e-mail from last year, while 29% said they were now seeing more spam in their work accounts than one year earlier.

At the same time, respondents also indicated that spam isn't as troubling as it once was. Twenty-eight percent said they didn't consider spam a problem at all, up from 16% in 2003, and only 18% considered spam a "big problem," down from 25%.

That people are somewhat blasé about spam by now shouldn't be that surprising. After all, unlike other nuisances such as pop-ups, spyware or viruses, spam at least can be deleted fairly. What's more -- assuming that the spam is only an ad and doesn't contain malicious code, or links to sites with malicious codes -- it also won't hurt computers. Additionally, as users have gotten more savvy, they've learned better how to manage spam via controls in their e-mail programs.

Of course, despite the greater sophistication of Web users today, the fact remains that spam only persists because users respond to it; otherwise, spammers would have long since moved on to other money-making schemes.