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"I've heard about anti-spam legislation but my inbox is still clogged with junk email! Can anyone help me?"

You may remember a time when opening your email inbox and seeing new mail meant you'd received a friend's personal email or a witty photo that would make you laugh. These days, opening your inbox is likely to fill you with irritation. New mail is often spam.

'Spam' is a generic term used to describe electronic 'junk mail' - unwanted messages sent to an email account or mobile phone. In Australia, spam is defined as 'unsolicited commercial electronic messages'.

Millions of unwanted email messages are sent out by spammers every day, causing significant inconvenience to both individuals and businesses. Spam disrupts email delivery, clogs up computer systems, wastes time, reduces productivity, frustrates users and raises the cost of Internet access fees. Many spam messages also contain offensive or fraudulent material, and is sometimes used to spread computer viruses and worms.

Far worse, though, is the practice of hijacking computing systems to disguise the origin of unwanted emails. Spammers route their messages through the servers of other organisations, with the potential to damage hard-won reputations.

Spam is frustrating, costly and destructive and has clearly shifted from being merely a nuisance to a serious and growing problem.

One leading anti-spam software provider reported a 300% increase in spam in 2001 to 2002. In that period it was estimated that 20% of all email was spam - that figure is now around 50% and showing no signs of slowing down.

A recent study estimates that spam is costing your business an average of A$900 per employee per year in lost productivity.

So how are some people fighting spam?

Anti-spam Measures

• Some users simply manually delete unsolicited email from their inbox
• Other Internet users rely on virus protection programs or firewalls to control spam; for example, adding spammers to the 'junk-senders' list in their email software
• Increasingly, larger email providers support their members with facilities to remove spam before it reaches their inbox, by comparing them against a range of criteria and parameters, which are refined through client interaction.

The first two measures have limited success as they rely on the user to maintain their inbox or junk mail filters - further impacting on employee time and productivity. The solution to controlling the growing spam problem lies in the third option.

Major I.T. and Mailguard - Your Inbox Sentinel

Offering spam and virus solutions for both small and large enterprises, the Major I.T. Mailguard Anti Spam Service fights spam with leading edge filtering and virus detection products. Corporate email messages are channeled through the anti-spam/virus engine, where it is checked and 'cleaned'. Clean mail is released to the end user email account, while definite spam is blocked and suspicious messages undergo more thorough scrutiny before being classified as either spam or clean mail.

This new Mailguard service from Major I.T. will be available on a subscription base from February 1, 2005. Don't let another spam message slip into your inbox. Contact Major I.T. now for a 14 day free trial!