A new study finds at least 34 percent of e-mail messages at work contain irrelevant information. [ABCNEWS.com]

A controversial anti-spam group agrees to remove a polling and market research firm from its database of suspected junk e-mailers. [C|Net]

She meant well. That's what Rose Lambert tells herself every morning when her e-mail folder begins to bulge with missives from around the globe, and she starts to slip again into her deep, private hell. [Washington Post]

Consumers across Europe who have been plagued by junk e-mails and phone messages are being told that new laws are on the way to control them.

Skinny DuBaud's take on the demise of former spam relay blacklister ORBS. [C-NET]

In our wireless world, can solicitors find you anywhere within cell range if you have a data-ready wireless phone turned on? [CNET.com]

Recent court decisions upholding laws against unsolicited e-mails will increasingly focus attention on a few individuals who send out the majority of such unwanted advertising messages.

European telecommunication ministers have agreed that unsolicited e-mail and wireless text messages should be prohibited under a new data protection law.

Activists decry a loophole in proposed U.S. anti-spam laws that would allow each spammer to send one unsolicited e-mail before an ISP could take action against the spammer. [E-Commerce Times]

Internet subscribers world-wide are unwittingly paying an estimated €10 billion a year in connection costs just to receive "junk" e-mails, according to a study undertaken for the European Commission.

The stock market was plummeting Monday. Everything was crazy. And as if that weren't enough, Salomon Smith Barney in Alexandria, Va., was inundated with strange phone calls. [USA Today]

Auction site eBay has apparently decided that users of its service who said no really meant yes. So, in an attempt to "help" its users, the company has informed many of them, by e-mail, that their marketing preferences were automatically being changed. [Wired]

The European parliament has bungled its latest attempt to outlaw spam. [The Register]

A European committee has blocked plans to outlaw unsolicited commercial email dealing a major blow to anti-spam supporters. [The Register]

Lobbyists for the European Internet industry believe their campaign for a ban on spam is gaining momentum. [The Register]

Two Los Angeles men are to go to jail for their part in a bulk email scam which duped 12,000 people and severely impacted the operations of several large US ISPs. [The Register]

ISPs are battling rogue spammers lurking in the back alleys and hidden corners of their networks. As the fighting heats up, more and more legitimate e-mail is getting blocked along with the junk. [Wired]

Theoretically, because violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986 have been included in the terrorism crackdown, hackers and spammers could be sentenced to life in prison. [News Factor]

Ben Johnson has been sending e-mail for months from his Hotmail account, but he just discovered that some of them were diverted to the trash before arriving at their destination. [CNET.com]

In what some see as a perfect example of the evidence of cosmic retribution, an avalanche of spam has crashed British Internet service provider Pipex's servers, and stopped delivery of e-mail to its million-plus users for the past week. [Wired]

MSN has signed up with Brightmail to stop its email users getting spammed. The ISP will offer its five million email users in the US the option of Brightmail's Anti-Spam Solution. [The Register]

Some say the only way to stop the spread of e-mail Spam is to charge e-mail users a fee -- but the strategy has failed to stem the tide of regular junk mail. [NewsFactor]

Spam costs Net users a whopping E10 billion ($9.33 billion) a year, according to the European Commission. [The Register]

When rep. Heather Wilson (R-N.M.) introduced legislation in February to prevent or greatly reduce unsolicited commercial e-mail, commonly known as spam, privacy advocates cheered and then lent their support. But then some trade associations complained, and shortly thereafter the bill was amended in a congressional committee, and stripped of some of its enforcement strengths. [InfoWorld]

Last week, Reps. Heather Wilson (R-N.M.) and Gene Green (D-Texas) reintroduced a bill they claimed "empowers consumers and their ISP with the ability to protect both their privacy and their resources" by restricting unsolicited commercial e-mail. [Wired]

To date, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has only gone after spam in cases in which deceptive advertising was being prosecuted. Unsolicited commercial e-mail (UCE) itself, regardless of its contents, has not been a target. [E-Commerce News]

Some popular free Web services are playing both sides of the fence when it comes to protecting consumers from pesky marketers, offering to block junk e-mail while they help advertisers push promotions into customers' in-boxes. [CNET.com]

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UUNet customers have been left stranded without access to their email for the last 36 hours after the outfit took a "very big hit" from spammers earlier this week. [The Register]

Californians Michael Persaud, 24, of San Diego and Frank Kriticos, 25, of Santee will answer felony criminal charges of spamming and so earn the distinction of being the first people so charged in that state, according to a story in the local Union Tribune newspaper. [The Register]

Alan Brown makes a short response to the news that ORBS is shutting down.

In ongoing investigations, the FTC and Project Mailbox found that many unsolicited e-mail sweepstakes offerings, travel offers and work-at-home schemes are fraudulent. [NewsFactor]

A bill designed to give consumers and ISPs greater control over a flood of unwanted e-mail, commonly known as spam, was introduced Wednesday by the same U.S. representatives who sponsored the legislation in the last Congress. [CNN]

The British marketing industry has begun the fight back against European Union proposals to ban all unsolicited emails. [Guardian Unlimited]

Getting people to say yes to marketing e-mails, and then getting them the messages that are most likely to make them buy, is a thriving industry of its own. [E-Commerce Times]

EBay is either a scheming marketing company or an innocent victim of mass paranoia launched by a well-intentioned e-mail it sent to its users. [Wired]

Kourosh Kenneth Hamidi remains barred from targeting Intel employees with bulk e-mail.

Attention, spamees: Don't take your hand off the delete key. Indications are that plenty more spam is on its wa

A small claims court judge in Bellevue, Washington, awarded Bennett Haselton $2,000 for getting spam.

Before the rubble had even stopped smoking from Tuesday's terrorist attacks in New York and Washington D.C., spammers were trying to capitalize on the tragedy.

'The federal E911 regulations have precipitated a flurry of privacy issues, as well as concerns that consumer wireless devices will be bombarded with unsolicited messages.'

DoCoMo said it has requested permission to block any e-mail sent to large numbers of invalid e-mail addresses.

Holt's wireless phone bill, referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, specifically prohibits the use of wireless phones' text, graphic or image messaging systems to transmit unsolicited commercial messages.

The auction giant's new system that was designed to limit spam is forcing some sellers to weed through even more junk mail to find legitimate messages from bidders. [c|net]