Kids, spam, and porn

From Wired News:

Four out of five children receive inappropriate spam e-mail touting get-rich-quick schemes, and almost half receive spam linking to pornographic materials, according to a study released Monday by an Internet security company.

A substantial number of the 1,000 children ages 7 to 18 interviewed for the survey by Symantec said they felt "uncomfortable and offended when seeing improper e-mail content."

"Parents need to educate their children about the dangers of spam and how they can avoid being exposed to offensive content or becoming innocent victims of online fraud," said Steve Cullen, Symantec's senior vice president for consumer products. One in five children opened and read spam, the study found, and more than half of them checked e-mail without parental oversight.

Among the other findings in the survey:
• 80 percent of the respondents said they are bombarded by sweepstakes messages.
• 62 percent received spam touting dating services.
• 47 percent received e-mails with links to pornographic websites.
• 34 percent have felt uncomfortable receiving spam.