Unsolicited commercial e-mail (UCE)

I'm sure many of you feel the same way I do about spam, or unsolicited commercial e-mail (UCE). It has become extremely annoying, at a great cost to our productivity. Currently, 80% of all e-mail traffic consists of spam, and that is up from 60% in early 2004 [1]. Matt Hicks reports [2] that the cost of spam to a company is about $2000 per employee and rising. E-mail is considered spam if [3] 1) the recipient's identity is irrelevant, 2) the recipient did not grant permission for the e-mail to be sent, and 3) the sender receives a disproportionate benefit compared to the recipient.