Washington Post: Spamís cost to business escalates

A decent overview of the issues presently surrounding spam.

Roughly 40 percent of all e-mail traffic in the United States is spam, up from 8 percent in late 2001 and nearly doubling in the past six months, according to Brightmail Inc., a major vendor of anti-spam software. By the end of this year, industry experts predict, fully half of all e-mail will be unsolicited. (About 40 percent of U.S. Postal Service mail is business marketing.)

Many companies with legitimate products rely on the ability to reach millions of existing and potential customers through e-mail, and they argue that their solicitations are not spam. But of the total volume of unsolicited mail pouring into e-mail boxes, much is pornographic, comes from scam artists or contains viruses.