Microsoft claims it will have stopped spam in two years time
26 January 2004
While junk emails continue to pour into users' inboxes, Microsoft founder Bill Gates has declared that within two years the company will have rid the world of spam.
In a speech at the World Economics Forum, he argued that financial penalties would be the ultimate solution to rid email of spam.
Industry experts have warned that tens of thousands of Britons' computers have been infected by viruses which are pushing out thousands of junk emails each day without them even knowing.
Virus writers and spammers are reported to have joined forces to create a network of broadband PCs around the world which are continuously pumping out spam, some of which is fraudulent.
In his plan to beat spam, Bill Gates has considered anti-spam software that would force the email sender to solve a puzzle, or the computer sending the message to do a simple computation.
Although this would be easy for machines sending a few emails, it would prove rather costly and difficult when dealing with huge amounts of spam.
Taking a more optimistic view than others in the industry, Mr Gates argued that a fine for rejected mail would work as an electronic equivalent of a stamp, and genuine email senders would not be put off, as they would know their mail would not be rejected.
Britain is now thought to be the tenth largest originator of junk mail and the government has admitted that it does not have any idea of the number of PCs infected.
Whilst Britain's much criticised anti-spam law only charges a maximum fine of £5,000, some spammers are actually making £20-30,000 a week, creating ' a bargain for spammers' according to Steve Linford, founder of Spamhaus
According to Mr Linford, the amount of infected machines was growing by 50,000 to 100,000 a week worldwide as more people got broadband connections and were infected by viruses.
Now the European Commission is expected to demand tougher action against spam, as Mr Gates claimed, 'We believe that spam can and must be dramatically reduced'.
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