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American workers are largely spared from unwanted commercial e-mail, according to a new study published Sunday that contradicts the perception that spam is flooding in-boxes.

Of the 1003 American at-work e-mail users surveyed by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 52 percent reported no spam in their work in-box, and another 19 percent said less than 10 percent of the incoming e-mail at work is spam. By contrast, only 21 percent of respondents reported spam-free personal in-boxes.

Spam filters on corporate e-mail servers or on client systems get part of the credit for keeping work in-boxes clean. Another reason is that business accounts are small prey for harvesters of e-mail addresses compared with large e-mail providers such as America Online, according to the study "E-mail at Work."

Jupiter Research earlier this year predicted U.S. consumers will receive over 3900 spam messages five years from now as the amount spent on e-mail marketing campaigns grows from $1.4 billion in 2002 to $8.3 billion in 2007.

E-Mail Essentials

Of all employed Americans, about 62 percent have Internet access at work and 98 percent use e-mail on the job. That works out to be over 57 million at-work e-mail users, and 52 percent of those said e-mail is essential to their jobs, according to the Pew study.

E-mail at work is good to stay abreast of what is going on at the office, said 77 percent; to review or edit documents, reported 67 percent; and to make appointments, according to 63 percent. Personal contact is preferred by 85 percent of at-work e-mail users when it comes to discussing office problems or sensitive issues, according to the study.

Most users said that work e-mail is manageable, with 73 percent spending an hour or less per day on their e-mail. Sixty percent of at-work e-mail users received 10 or fewer messages a day, and 48 percent said that e-mail volume has increased over the past year, according to the study.

Power e-mail users, those who handle over 30 and often over 50 messages a day, represent 20 percent of all at-work e-mail users. Typically, these are well-paid professionals, managers, or executives who are veteran e-mail users with over three Internet usage years under their belt, according to the study.

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