One in 10 emails is pornographic

Internet users are facing a blizzard of pornographic junk emails every time they log on, according to a survey.

Pornographic "spam" - unsolicited emails promoting sex websites - grew twentyfold during 2002. Now, nearly one in 10 of all emails promotes pornography.

Surfers are often duped into making themselves more of a target by pressing "unsubscribe" buttons that merely confirm their email addresses.

A spokesman for the world's largest internet provider AOL said: "In November we stopped half-abillion spams a day. By February we were stopping a billion a day. Now it's nearly two billion a day."

With nearly half of all households having internet access, pornographic spam has become a major issue for parents fearful that their children could be exposed to the messages.

The survey, by a software company, found 81 per cent of parents are either concerned or very concerned.

The NCH Action for Children charity said the number of calls it received on the subject was growing. "Many very distressed parents have been in touch to tell us about some of the disgusting material that has popped up on the screens of their 10-year-old children, and younger," said John Carr, the charity's internet consultant, who is also on the board of the Internet Watch Foundation. "We even had a
case of one 10-year-old girl receiving paedophile images."

NCH blames UK internet service providers. "Most have not deployed effective filtering systems to ensure spam does not reach their customers," said Mr Carr. "We do not believe they are taking enough responsibility for protecting children."

Brightmail, which carried out the research, monitors more than 55 billion emails a month. "The internet is an unregulated medium that crosses legislative boundaries, so it is very hard to police," said Gert Veendal, head of European sales.

"Companies that offer pornography allow nearly any email marketer to sell their wares, paying a commission for any completed transaction. Anyone with a computer can send out millions of messages for virtually nothing."

America's largest email companies - AOL, Microsoft and Yahoo - plan to use new technical equipment to cut spam and prosecute persistent illegal spammers.