世論 What Japan Thinks

japan.internet.com and JR Tokai Express Research recently conducted a survey to find out about 迷惑メール , meiwaku me-ru, nuisance mail literally, or unsolicited mail, or simply just spam. They interviewed 330 mobile phone owners, 60% male, from all around the country by means of an internet-based survey. The sample consisted of 25.2% in the their twenties, 43.0% in their thirties, 21.5% in their forties, 7.6% in their fifties, and 2.7% in their sixties.

Initially, mobile phones’ email address defaulted to just the telephone number; in fact, when I first came to Japan my phone had no option for even changing the mail address. Now, with the increased awareness (and increased incidence too) of spam, DoCoMo at least (presumably the other carriers do similar things) give new customers a default email address that consists of their phone number plus a few extra random characters to defeat dictionary attacks.

I personally have got zero spam, mainly as I have a user name that is in no Japanese dictionary and I don’t sign up with dodgy sites that might leak mail addresses.

Q1: How often do you get spam on your mobile phone? (Sample size=330)

10 or more per day	6.1%
Several per day	10.7%
One a day	3.1%
One to three a week	2.1%
One to three a month	6.7%
Rarely	16.6%
Never	10.7%
Used to, but not any longer	43.0%
Don’t know	0.9%

Q2: What measures do you take to prevent spam? (Sample size=291, multiple answer)

Use long mail address	43.6%
Use service provider’s server-based filtering feature	27.5%
Use other anti-spam measures	7.9%
Use phone’s built-in filtering service	6.2%
Use “Sender and subject line only download” service	1.7%
Take no measures	24.7%
Other	3.8%

I don’t know why they didn’t ask the “Never”s from Q1 what they did to ensure they never got spam.

Q3: Which do you get more spam on, your computer or your mobile phone? (Sample size=291)

Much more on PC	57.3%
A little more on PC	14.8%
About the same	11.7%
A little more on mobile	7.6%
Much more on mobile	8.6%