Spam in Oz

One of the areas in which I act responsibly -- there are a few -- is spam and virus control. I get very little spam, mostly because of AOL's spam control features, but also because I religiously report spam to AOL. They have very effective bayesian filters, but you have to keep on top the problem.

According to The Age, two thirds of all e-mail is spam and one-tenth of that is scam, i.e. malicious efforts to swindle, mislead, and steal from you. The Aussies have nationalized some of what AOL does for you by building a national dataset of spam. They hooked up with Microsoft for a fix to Outlook that allows automatic forwarding and deletion of spam. Does anyone use Outlook? I wonder if Americans can take advantage of the feature? At any rate, they take it a little more seriously than we do. Companies can be fined up to $10 million for spamming.

Ah yes, Evolution in action. That which does not destroy us, makes us strong.

6/22/2006 10:58 AM