junk e-mail

For months I had been receiving junk E-mail from various companies offering to increase Web site traffic.

The Senate passed a plan to combat junk E-mail earlier this year.

This evolved into a barrage of junk E-mail that overwhelmed the company's computers and prevented it from providing normal service to its subscribers.

"What the sender really is doing is shifting the cost of junk E-mail to the end user rather than to the person sending it."

To help the mailers escape detection, the program allows them to fake the return address and route the junk E-mail through different servers.

And even blocking junk E-mail is costly, eating up a large amount of a service provider's computer time.

"You don't have many people sending junk E-mail who are collecting the addresses themselves," he said.

Thus, your comparison of junk E-mail with fliers on windshields is flawed.

But Internet privacy concerns run far deeper than the nuisance of junk E-mail.

Want to learn how to put an end to junk E-mail forever?