Most people think they receive more unsolicited email, or spam, than others. That may not

be the case, but UK people can at least say with certainty that they get a higher volume of spam than their European neighbours.

A new piece of research by Harris Interactive has found that UK people receive at least one-third more spam as a proportion of their total emails than people in other major western European countries (see table). The survey also found that home Internet users in the UK are the most confident in their anti-virus protection, with Spain lagging the rest. So some spam filtering is taking place in the UK: at least messages containing viruses are not getting through.