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Spam clogs inboxes all too often

It’s one of those sad compliments to the digital revolution. A mountain of worthless messages in your e-mail box marketing everything from home loans to more vulgar materials. Spam filters help but don’t solve the problem — not by a long shot.

The problem isn’t getting any better. According to cnn.com, the number of spam e-mails increased from 2.3 billion a day last year to 14.5 billion a day this year. That’s gone beyond being a minor annoyance and has graduated into a productivity-sapping disaster.

In the recent tradition of do-not-call legislation, Congress is trying to get involved and slow the flood of ads into our inboxes. The Senate unanimously passed legislation to restrict some of the practices spammers use. The bill stops short of creating a “do-not-spam” list but does limit misleading subject lines, disguising return addresses and hacking into a third-party computer to mask the path of the e-mail.

At this point, something is better than nothing. Even spam continues persists, it becomes a lot easier for filters to pick up on it and set it aside for later disposal.

The next step may be creating a do-not-e-mail list similar to the do-not-call list. This is where things get dicey. Many senators doubt that such a list will deter the most prolific spammers and only force out small, legitimate companies. In addition, there are technical problems with producing a master list without letting it become a gold mine of active e-mail addresses to send spam to.

Despite these misgivings, the do-not-spam list is a good idea. You may not be able to eliminate spam entirely, but just putting a dent in it is an improvement.