45% OF ALL EMAIL IS SPAM
This is up from 16% in 2002. They're killing the Internet according to a NY Times article. The most amazing thing about the article is that it includes names and pictures of actual spammers. That seems dangerous. You'd think that most of these low-lifes would want to crawl under a rock and stay there or at least maintain a REALLY low profile. There are some crazies who could get violent over this issue.

A quote from a spammer: "For her part, Ms. Sachs, the e-mail marketer, says that any such move would only end up making it harder to run a legitimate business.

"'These antispammers should get a life,' she said. 'Do their fingers hurt too much from pressing the delete key? How much time does that really take from their day?'

"By contrast, she said, '70 million people have bad credit. Guess what? Now I can't get mail through to them to help them."

I should get a life? I'm not the one flooding other people's computers with porno and other assorted worthless junk. Sure we could delete it (and we do the best we can). But in the process of sorting through it all there is the danger that some legitimate email is going to be deleted.

One of my email accounts is with charter.net -- our ISP at home. I have never given that address out to anyone. Still the account generates sometimes 40 pieces of spam a day. I blocked everything coming to that address. (Sorry Charter -- if you want to contact me about my account you'll have to do so by snail mail). OTOH, I have a hotmail.com account and have never given that address out either. I rarely even get a single piece of spam there.