Spam is basically junk mail. It takes its name from an old Monty Python skit which inferred that the meat product SPAM was everywhere. The most benign spam messages are a nuisance, the worst are scams aiming to relieve you of your hard-earned cash, or computer viruses aiming to damage computers and networks.

According to John Levine in Fighting Spam for Dummies by the end of 2003 up to 80% of email traffic through major Internet Service Providers (ISPs) was spam. Levine also states that in 2001 the European parliament found that spam cost around $9.4 billion per year.

So, in addition to the nuisance factor, spam also costs a great deal of money. Spam continues to flourish because the person sending the spam is not the one paying for it. Again, Levine states, "no other advertising medium costs the recipient more than it costs the sender of the ad."

The unfortunate ones paying for this glut of spam are the Internet users like you and I. We are not only paying with cash for such things as higher ISP costs, we are also paying with our time. Time is money, and it takes time to sort through and delete the spam. It also takes time waiting for email and web sites to download. The massive volume of spam sent daily through the Internet network causes the network to operate at a much slower pace than if it was free of spam.

Spam also remains popular and voluminous because there is always someone out there who will buy the product advertised. If a spammer sends a message to 5000 people and only 1% respond, that is still 50 people who have made that spammer's very limited (and cheap) advertising effort worthwhile.

For more information on what spam is, how it works, how you can fight it, and the tricks that spammers use, read John Levine's book Fighting Spam for Dummies. The book will explain the issue of spam in greater detail. The more informed you are the greater your chances of avoiding or reducing the amount of spam you receive.

Laws on spam do exist in many countries, including Australia, which enacted a Spam Act in 2003. However, despite the laws, it remains quite difficult to catch and prosecute spammers. It is particularly difficult when, due to the global nature of the Internet, someone sending spam from Taiwan to Australian email addresses, for example, cannot be prosecuted in Australia under Australian law.

To help combat this, Australia has entered into a number of agreements with other nations. These agreements are designed to allow the countries involved to cooperate in the investigation and enforcement of spam law violations. The countries cooperate by sharing evidence, recognizing local laws, exchanging relevant information, requesting the assistance of parties to the agreement, and so on.

For more information on the Spam Act and our agreements with Korea, USA, UK, and Thailand, see the website of the Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts and also the website of The Coalition Against Unsolicited Bulk Email, Australia.