Saturday, 5 July, 2003, 16:35 BST

Spam Jam: ’Net Users Rubbish Junk Mail

Some people retain spam to make themselves look popular

Internet users and tinned meat manufacturers alike are becoming increasingly concerned with the volume of spam found in e-mail inboxes.

Some observers estimate that spam is increasing at an exponential rate, and that pretty soon we’ll have more spam messages than Internet users, e-mail addresses and Microsoft software glitches combined.

Internet pundits MessageLob told KTAB how they had done surveys showing that spam has increased twenty-fold in the last year: “We sent out 4.4 billion unsolicited e-mails,” explained e-mail expert Francis Bargle, “asking people to fill in a questionnaire about spam. We couldn’t fund this kind of mass mailing on our own, so we got sponsorship from Gro-It-Big.com and offered a cut-price penis enlarging kit with each questionnaire returned!”

“The response was disappointing,” he continued, “worse than turnout for a local election!” Detailed statistical analysis of the returned questionnaires showed that there are five internet users, four male, one female, and that 55% of mail they receive is unsolicited spam.

“That’s a lot of spam,” explained Marvin Wilcox of Meat-In-A-Tin Inc., “In fact, ironically, we now spend more time disposing of unwanted e-mails than make producing the product which was its namesake!”

Wilcox is annoyed that the word ‘spam’ has been applied to unwanted e-mail. “It’s giving spam a bad name. All those jokes in the war, a Monty Python skit, and now using the word for junk e-mail. It’s not that it’s a watery, tasteless excuse for corned beef, it’s just getting bad publicity.”

Legislation is currently being developed by the All Party Internet Group (A PIG) to make spam illegal except if Internet users specifically request it, presumably upon realising they either have no common sense, no pointless possessions or no friends to get real mail from.

Such legislation would decimate spam and allow prosecution of spammers. However, in America the situation is predictably different. US specialists have devised a scheme whereby people must specifically opt out of spam, by a complex and idiotic method. Analysts predict that such legislation, effectively legalising spam, would result in the Worldwide e-mail system being brought to its knees, just like the Kyoto protocol and UN before it.

Another menace, yet to be addressed by either A PIG or the Americans, appears to be Internet pop-up adverts. The annoying things leap up during innocuous Internet use and advertise everything from porn to expensive methods of getting rid of pop-up adverts. These are rumoured to be on the Americans’ agenda, however; plans are afoot to make them legal unless Internet users specifically opt out of using browsers.

Sadly, spam shows no sign of abating. At present this poses only a small threat to human life and health, but top medical pundits have warned that even this may change. If levels of spam received per individual internet user continue to increase, there may well be an alarming rise in the number of people suffering from RSI as a result of clicking on the “delete” button every time they receive a new offer to win $25,000 from the same address they blocked last week.