Unsolicited E-Mail - Common Name... 'SPAM'

Unsolicited email should be viewed with caution.. These e-mail messages may contain advertisements for pornography, get-rich-quick schemes and other ploys that violate laws, are offensive or inappropriate for viewing by children. Clicking on links contained in spam messages can also expose Internet users to computer viruses.

"In Washington State, the number one consumer complaint reported over the last 2 years is spam. On average our office receives between 1,000 - 1,600 spam complaints per month. The Federal Trade Commission reports receiving over 130,000 junk email complaints a day. Almost 45 percent of all email is now spam and that number is growing each year. Nearly three trillion spam messages are sent each year - 13 times the total snail mail delivered by the U.S. Postal service. The average wired American is hit with nearly 2,200 spam messages annually - this after most ISPs have filtered 80-90 percent of the junk messages. Some reports indicate that these numbers could increase by five times in the near future. Junk email is an issue not only reserved for individuals - it is estimated that spam costs legitimate businesses $9 billion dollars a year." ( Source )

In June 2006 there were 2695 searches for "Email Hoaxes" and 2669 searches for "Email Hoax". 6193 serches for "Chain Letters", 58994 for Urban Legends, 2653 for "email spam". 11,773.3 searches per DAY for "Anti Virus software"

The point is that unwanted email is not going away and people are using the internet on a regular basis to find information about email hoaxes, urban legends, spam, scams, chain letters, and phishing email.

There are many spam filters available for email as well as special appliances available that are a higher end devices that serve similar purposes.  There will soon be a products page available with links to sites that offer these products if that's what you're looking for.

Chances are you found this site doing one of those searches - hopefully you will find what you're looking for now that you are here.

The mission of this site is to attempt to help people learn how this unwanted mail finds it's way into your inbox and what you can do to prevent it.

You can also find samples of various types of urban legends and email hoaxes and the sources to the truth so you don't get sucked in to forwarding false information.