Filtering software has, by most accounts, fallen short. Seemingly airtight privacy policies always seem to have at least one loophole that allows marketers to ferret out even the most carefully guarded e-mail address.

Lawsuits have been cited as the next best hope. A class-action suit filed in August against senders of junk faxes has been cited as a model for anti-spam suits. Yet, most experts say such lawsuits are unlikely to slow the march of junk e-mail into the inboxes of the world's computer users.

"Spam is inexpensive and can be effective at times," GartnerG2 analyst Denise Garcia told NewsFactor. "That's a powerful combination, one that [attracts] a lot of marketers who don't have to worry about their brand image."

Joining the Fight

Spam's many detractors have a new ally in their fight, however. After remaining neutral for some time, much to the dismay of such groups as Junkbusters, the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) announced last week that it will support state and federal legislation aimed at curtailing spam.

DMA president H. Robert Wientzen said the move is a recognition that spam hurts direct marketers who use e-mail carefully and that anti-spam regulation will help "preserve the promise of e-mail as the next great marketing channel. Without a solution that includes legislation, legitimate marketers who use e-mail to communicate with consumers will continue to suffer at the hands of spammers."

But legislation could be difficult to enforce, because spammers can strike from any location around the globe. And analysts say that despite the DMA's insistence to the contrary, direct marketers must acknowledge that even legitimate marketers are guilty of adding to the flood of e-mail clutter.

"Every marketer that sends irrelevant, unwanted messages contributes to the problem," Forrester Research analyst Daniel O'Brien told NewsFactor. "There is a lot of clutter, and even things that aren't necessarily spam to marketers fall into that category if it's not done right."

Land of the Lost

Others say the biggest problem with spam now is that even though most above-the-board consumer product makers and marketing firms have turned their backs on massive e-mail blasts, plenty of underground merchants seem willing to take over.

Based on consumer complaints to state and federal regulators, most annoying and offensive junk e-mail barrages currently are generated by shady marketers pushing such products as anti-aging potions, sexual aids and pornography.

These unscrupulous marketers are constantly devising ways to evade filters. Both MSN and AOL touted improved e-mail filtering as a highlight of their version 8 launches earlier this month, an admission of sorts that previous offerings have not done the trick as spammers continue to search for new e-mail addresses.

"If you have a list of e-mail addresses, someone will pay you for it, and it can be resold countless times," said O'Brien. "It becomes a valuable commodity."

Growing on You

Just how much spam is out there? Two recent studies put spam's percentage of e-mail volume at either 17 percent or 38 percent. Despite the disparity, either ratio represents a giant quantity of unwanted e-mail. According to research firm IDC, some 31 billion e-mail messages will have been exchanged in 2002 by year's end.

That number will double to 60 billion within four years, IDC vice president Mark Levitt told the E-Commerce Times.

"E-mail is a valuable tool for both business and personal communication," Levitt said. "But it's easy to see how all that value could be crushed under the sheer weight of that much e-mail before too long."