Spam. Even the thought of it can send shivers down one's spine, especially if you are one who receives unbearable amounts of it each day.

Over the past few years, spam has increased by more digits than one cares to count. So how did you get on those spam lists?

1. Forwards. When you or your friends use the regular Carbon Copy (CC) to forward emails (cute jokes, poems, etc.), all the email addresses are displayed for all of the recipients to see. For example: Your friend sends a message to you and two other people. All three of you can see each other's email addresses. Person #2 (Josh) forwards this message to all 25 of his friends. Each of those 25 friends can see your email address. Now, 27 people have access to your email address. Let's say each of those 25 friends forwards that message to all 25 of their own friends. Now 627 people have access to your email address. Some forwards that are circulating online can contain up to 500 different email addresses. They are a dream for a collecting spammer. (using BCC - Blind Carbon Copy - prevents people from seeing your recipient list, so be sure to use this when forwarding messages to many people!)
   
   
2. Online forms. Whether you signed up for an e-newsletter, filled out a survey, went shopping online or sent an online greeting card, your email address was collected and possibly sold. Companies sell their customer database to make extra money. Sometimes you selected that you are interested in one topic or another (electronics, music, etc). Your email address may be sold to companies who will send you information about those topics. This can even be considered "opt-in" email (since you indicated you were interested in that topic), and 100% legal in the U.S. Even where spam is illegal.
   
   
3. Websites. If you run a website or your email address is on any website (even if you filled out a guest book at a friend's site), there is a good chance that an email harvesting program will pick it up. Programs spider the web constantly harvesting millions of email addresses, and if your email address appears on any site, it will likely get picked up.

According to recent statistics, spam increased over 65% from 2002 to 2003. Spam is expected to increase, again, by over 75% this year. Postini, who processes millions of emails per day for their large customer database, reports that lately 10 out of 12 emails is spam.

The US passed the CAN-SPAM act of 2003 and it did nothing.

Other spam legislation has been proposed to every congress since 2000 but never passed.

Email filters cannot catch all the spam since spam is always changing.

Some say that email senders should pay in CPU cycles, but who would want that nightmare? Imagine your cost for internet service tripling because your ISP needs to invest in 3x more servers to process the outgoing mail.

According to The Register and eTesting Labs, since email filters don't work, then the only other option must be legislation.

In the crazy world of passing the buck, Email in Focus is offering a real service to real consumers that CAN eliminate their spam. Period. You won't be disappointed, guaranteed. Sign up today.