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Almost 16.5 million households in the UK now have internet access, an increase of 1.2 million since 2007, the latest official figures show.

The Office for National Statistics ONS said the new figure represented close to two-thirds of UK households.

Homes in the South East are most likely to have internet access with those in north-east England least likely.

Over two-thirds of adults go online every day or almost every day, with men more regular users than women.

Graph showing rise in internet connectivity since 2005

In the 35% of households with no access, there was an increase in the proportion that said they did not want the internet at home, from 3% in 2006 to 24% in 2008.

The survey also found that the better educated were more likely to be online.

Graph showing rise in internet connectivity since 2005

The ONS said that 93% of adults aged under 70 who had a university degree or equivalent qualification had internet access.

This compared with just 56% of those with no formal qualifications being online.

Communications regulator Ofcom said earlier this month that PC and laptop use had grown fourfold since 2002.

BBC NEWS | Two-thirds of UK homes now online

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Spam celebrated its 30th anniversary on Saturday (May 3rd).

The first reported mass email was sent to 350 people on May 3rd 1978 by Gary Thuerk to advertise a new system his company was pioneering. Even then, users greeted the email with criticism and distrust.

Today, it is estimated that 120 billion junk emails are sent every day, often resulting in internet users’ inboxes quickly filling up.

Spam was originally referred to as flooding, until an administrator of an internet chat system bestowed it with its new nickname. The term spam is thought to refer to the Monty Python sketch where a waiter reveals there is little on the menu but the processed and canned meat.

The European Union’s internal marketing commission estimated in 2001 that spam cost internet users €10 billion (approximately £7.87 billion) a year globally.

However, spam is not just annoying but could also install malware or result in financial data being stolen, Gary Cluley, a senior technology consultant, at Sophos told the BBC.

‘Spam is a burden on all of us’ he said.

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A European advisory body has recommended that internet search engines should delete users’ personal data.

The European Commission’s Article 29 Data Protection Working Party report has told how search engines are unclear on their data protection policies and advised that all collected personal data should be deleted after six months, the BBC has reported.

The recommendation would mean that collected data could only be used for the purpose of searching.

If the commission accepts the request it could lead to conflict with popular American search engine companies.

Google and Yahoo! carry a policy of rendering all users’ data anonymous after a period of 18 months. MSN’s policy comes into action at 13 months.

In a statement Peter Fleischer of Google’s global privacy counsel said: ‘Google takes privacy incredibly seriously; protecting our users’ privacy is at the heart of all our products.’

Another obligation set out in the report was the obtainment of personal consent from users to allow their data to be uses in non-search services. It also asked search engines to give users clear information on the data they intended to collect.

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Mozilla has said its latest web browser version of Firefox would make changes to the way people conduct their online searches.

Firefox 3, which is still going through its third stage of beta testing, will combine searching and bookmarking features through the URL bar as well as offline working.

If a user wanted to search for magnets for example by typing it into the URL bar, a list of sites previously visited by the user would show up and offline working would allow users to retrieve pertinent data once an internet connection was lost.

Mitchell Baker, chairman of the Mozilla Foundation, told BBC World Service’s Digital Planet programme: “In terms of features, we’ve tried very hard not to bloat the interface but to keep it simple, the way people like it, and to have new things appear when you need them.”

Firefox is currently the second most popular browser with 12 per cent of the sector, while Microsoft’s Internet Explorer remains number one.

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The favourite websites visited by UK surfers were not surprisingly made up mostly of the large search giants Amazon and Google, proving that people continue to enjoy mega search sites with the occasional odd favourite site.

Awards for the best sites during the past three months were voted on by visitors at BT’s website in the BT Online Excellence Awards made up of 5,000 nominations and 27,000 votes.

The top ten votes from first to last are as follows:

1.Google.com
2. BBC.co.uk
3. Amazon.com (books)
4. Next.co.uk
5. BBC.co.uk/cbeebies
6. Amazon.com
7. BBCgoodfood.com
8. Amazon.com (electrical)
9. Greenpeace.org.uk
10. Gardenersworld.com

Matt Walton, head of online channel development at BT, said: “We weren’t interested in the technical aspects of the sites, just why users like them.

“As we suspected, the range of products or information available was the most important factor, followed by how easy it was use.”

The BBC won best in three of the 17 categories in the contest, winning the top spot for Best Cookery Website, Best Kids Website and Best News Website.

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Social networking sites are likely to become an increasingly attractive target for fraudsters, experts have warned.

The turn of the new year is expected to see the popularity of social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook continue.

However, IT security analysts say the proliferation of personal details and the availability of information on people’s date of birth, interests and phone numbers could be a way in for unscrupulous hackers.

ScanSafe has forecast that 2008 will see Web 2.0 threats top the list of the biggest security worries.

“The explosion in popularity of Web 2.0 applications has made Web 2.0 sites an increasingly rich target for cyber criminals,” the firm declared in its evaluation of the coming year.

Mary Landesman, senior security researcher at the firm, told the BBC the nature of the medium meant it could be targeted.

“The technologies that play there and the third party add-ons make it an environment that is susceptible to compromise,” she explained.

Cybercrime is said to be an industry worth more than $100 billion a year.

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