By Jonathan Krim Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, March 13, 2003; Page A01
The flood of unsolicited messages sent over the Internet is growing so fast that spam may soon account for half of all U.S. e-mail traffic, making it not only a hair-pulling annoyance but also an increasing drain on corporate budgets and possibly a threat to the continued usefulness of the most successful tool of the computer age.
Spam continues to defy most legal and technical efforts to stamp it out. The surge has spurred calls for national legislation, but deep divisions remain regarding what constitutes spam and how best to regulate it. In the meantime, spammers, Internet providers, company network administrators and anti-spam vigilantes are locked in a ferocious electronic arms race.
[snip; long piece, at:]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17754-2003Mar12.html