Yep, costs me, the average consumer and internet user, money I don't have to spare, every time I renew my TrendMicro and AdAware/AdWatch, Norton, and McAfee. That's a lot of food for my kids and me. My ISP bundles a "free" subscription to Postini, which seems to catch about 40-50 junk mails a day and a nasty virus weekly. Some get through to my inbox if I don't preread email on my ISP server before I download it, a pain at best. Any word on existence of "reactive armor" so we can send back a nice present to the offending parties? I'll even spend more non-disposable income just to get even with the [expletive deleted]!

"Reactive armor"...I love the idea . BUT...as the article says, much of the spam is from zombie/bot computers that are compromised, not the spammer himself. That would only get the zombies (not necessarily a bad idea, personally, but....) not the spammers. I wish I could come up with a real solution that really worked....I could be a rich as Bill Gates!!!!

The combination of MailWasher Pro, and Avast keeps the aggravation down to a minimum for me.....

Haven't had a single spam message in hotmail in months now, not even in the junk folder .....and I never ever get spam in my ISP email account. which is reserved purely for personal friends & relatives. I refuse to use Yahoo mail or Gmail for the very reason that both parent companies are funded by or rely heavily on advertising income .... meaning they themselves have a vested interest in getting the advertising message to users.

I used to get a few spams in my hotmail junk folder, but after a couple of weeks of 'report and delete' I haven't been bothered by unwelcomed email since. Another clue to that is never using google search....ever, and using yahoo search more carefully and avoiding sites whose front pages are covered in promos and banner ads.

I once had a medical query and yahoo search took me to a 'supposed' medical site: however, the front page was covered in pharmacuetical ads, etc, and the next thing I know my yahoo email account is being bombarded by spam because I was logged in at the time. I still use yahoo search, but I deleted their email client from my machine and haven't bothered with another, feeling that keeping my search and email providers seperate is a much safer/happier option.

i think its time spammers were labeled as "terrorists" then Bush can set the military on them

I get an estimate of 300 junk messages in Chinese each week, I don't even speak or read Chinese. Anyway McAfee marks my messages as spam and I delete them. Sending spam violates the "Acceptable Use Policy" unless they follow the standards for the sending of commercial e-mail from the can spam act of 2003. You know the "CAN-SPAM Act of 2003" Prohibits advertising companies to send "SEXUALLY ORIENTED SPAM" without the label or subject named "SEXUALLY EXPLICIT" I get "SEXUALLY ORIENTED SPAM" with out the label or subject called "SEXUALLY EXPLICIT" or any other name that tells this message is "SEXUALLY ORIENTED". These spammers are not only sending spam....... THEY ARE VIOLATING THE LAW !!! In my opinion the "CAN-SPAM Act of 2003" didn't help at all, because more spam has "INCREASED" in mail accounts. Something should be done about this.

Another thing that helps keep the spam down is to clean out your cookies cache and run both Adaware & Spybot after each and every web search, without fail....

I do it religiously, because removing the adware, spy-bots and cookies disables/severely hampers the spam-bots ability to identify your IP address, thus reducing the amount of spam received. Believe me, it really helps...as does avoiding sites with banner ads and frequent popups, as these are notorious for infesting PC's with the adware, spyware and tracking devices which identify your IP addy....

For example, if I'm doing a search on health issues, I carefully check the results and will not open a link that previously has backdoored me with spy/adware....then, if a site I've never visited before has a front page with popups, banner ads and google links, I immediately close it and move on to another. Yeah it's a pain in the arse and more time consuming, but I'm paranoid after a total system shutdown over malware, so I'm playing safe rather than being sorry.

Oh, and why I mentioned health related searches....cos these frequently resulted in penis enlargement spam and emails with links to anatomy sites - of the pornographic variety. Now I'm not prudish and am neither for or against (regular) porn, but clicking on just one of those links can result in a deluge of similar/related material inundating your email folders, so are best deleted unopened.