The most annoying spam purported to pass on to people free passwords for sex sites that usually levy a charge to look beyond the front page.

The human gene pool should be incapable of producing enough idiots to financially support the vast number of spammers whose scat litters so many inboxes. Turns out, most spammers make money selling e-mail addresses to other spammers, who then sell those same addresses to others.

On Monday, the two co-founders of AvantGo launched a new spam filter that takes the most drastic anti-spam approach possible: Users only receive e-mail from people on a list of pre-approved senders.

AT&T WorldNet this week activated a risky spam-filtering technique that it shortly had to defuse after subscribers discovered they were losing legitimate e-mail.

The Internet Research Task Force, the closest thing the Internet has to a governing body for all matters technical, inaugurated the Anti-Spam Research Group this week to develop "a taxonomy of the problem and the proposed solutions."

Ron Guilmette tried to cleanse the Internet of spam. For his good deed, he got himself cleansed from the Internet.

E-mail users seeking relief from spam - unsolicited ads, commercials and promotions that frequently fill up online mailboxes - should not count on help from Congress this year.

The Direct Marketing Association released a summary of the spam laws in 41 countries and the European Union.

The Direct Marketing Association yesterday urged its members to ask New York Sen. Charles Schumer to drop his proposal for a do-not-e-mail registry.

Microsoft is turning up the heat on spam, filing a lawsuit to go after people it suspects of having harvested e-mail addresses from its Hotmail servers to spam subscribers.

These arch rivals, which compete ferociously for Internet subscribers, say illicit commercial e-mail has so overwhelmed their efforts to stop it that they are joining forces to press for tough federal legislation to stymie the spammers.

An Australian entrepreneur has created what may be the first antispam service that lets its users charge for the privilege of sending them e-mail.

Antivirus company Trend Micro is jumping into the antispam fray, unveiling new software it hopes will help information technology managers protect their workers from an increasing barrage of unwanted messages.

An influential Internet standards-setting body has begun a close scrutiny of the mounting problem of e-mail spam, in an effort that could have broad-ranging implications for future e-mail use and security.

The e-mail system is wilting under the attack of confidence tricksters and the mad inventors of viruses, warns Garry Barker.