Nearly every American has at least one e-mail address — most have several. And each of them knows that unsolicited e-mail is becoming a tremendous problem for businesses, churches and individuals alike. In fact, every e-mail address is a potential target today for "spam," despite the great caution taken by many.

Spam now accounts for nearly 40 percent of all e-mail traffic and is estimated to cost U.S. businesses $8 billion to $10 billion per year. The total amount of spam lobbed to U.S. computer users increased 86 percent in just one year, from 140 billion to 261 billion messages, according San Francisco-based Brightmail, Inc. The anti-spam software company's recent study found that computers field an average of 6.2 spam items per day, nearly double the amount received in 2001. However, one executive in Los Angeles noted that, when his law firm installed a strong spam blocking software, the spam hitting his personal e-mail account dropped to about three messages a day compared to nearly a hundred he received without the software.

A lot of spam consists of innocuous product and service advertisements, but statistics compiled by analysts at Brightmail show that pornographic solicitations — including offensive text, Web page links or even graphic images — represent the fastest growing category of unwanted e-mail ads, doubling as a percentage of spam in the last few years.

So how do spammers get someone's e-mail address? What can be done to minimize one's risk and to protect one's family? Here are some helpful hints:

• Parents should locate home computers in a common space within the home, such as a family room — not in a bedroom, secluded office or other place characterized by secrecy — thereby increasing accountability by users to the rest of the family.
• Buy filtering software that will block pornographic Web sites, whether accessed directly or by a link in an e-mail message. A study of Ohio grade-schoolers found that the average age of exposure to Internet pornography is now 9 years old, down from 13 not so long ago.
• Consumers can also purchase "challenge and response" systems that automatically respond to e-mails with a reply request that must be received before delivery, something that spammers will not do. Also, "white lists" of pre-approved e-mailers (like grandma) can be set up for children.
Never respond to an unsolicited e-mail message.
• Report spam e-mail and pornographic messages to your e-mail provider, the Department of Justice or tracking organizations like Morality in Media, who in turn notify the F.B.I. for follow up.
• Never respond to an unsolicited e-mail message — not even to "unsubscribe." Such replies only alert the spammer that he has an audience for future contacts. Simply delete the message.
• Never give out a credit card number via e-mail, no matter what the promise.
Use extreme caution when sending or forwarding funny or inspirational messages or photos.
• Never send or forward funny or inspirational messages or photos by listing family and friends in the TO field of your e-mail. This divulges all of these addresses to everyone else on the list. If your message is then repeatedly forwarded to another list, all of these names will eventually, albeit unintentionally, reach a spam marketer or pornography purveyor. Instead, when "broadcasting" an e-mail message to multiple recipients, protect your friends by only listing their addresses in the BC field of your message.
• Recognize that, even if you follow these safeguards, spammers may eventually obtain your address, perhaps by using computer programs that randomly generate likely addresses.

One recurrent problem with spam-blocking technologies is that they tend to snare some legitimate e-mail, too — such as e-mail newsletters requested and sometimes paid for by the recipient. In the vernacular of spam fighters, those legitimate messages are "false positives," while actual spam that is erroneously classified as legitimate correspondence is a "false negative." Such instances have led to grievances about overly broad filters.

Similar complaints occur when anti-spam blacklists are compiled which punish entire Internet providers or hosting services for the actions of a few clients, essentially a guilt-by-association approach. In both of these situations — "false positives" and blacklists — you may have to work closely with your e-mail service provider in order to receive those mass-distributed messages that you do want.

Pornography spam presents a particular danger to those fighting an addiction. "People who probably otherwise would never go to the seedy part of town to go into a dirty book store are very easily tempted when it comes into their home in this very private manner," said Jan LaRue, chief counsel of Concerned Women for America. "Pretty soon, they're obsessed with the stuff." That, of course, is the hope and intent of the pornography spammer.

Lewd e-mail promoting pornography may soon also pose more than just a technical challenge to businesses and organizations. It's set to become an acute legal problem, too. Graphic images appearing unbidden on personal computers in e-mail messages could qualify as evidence of a "hostile work environment," something forbidden by federal employment law. Porn spam could begin to crop up in sexual harassment complaints from employees offended by the material. Even if companies are not the source of such messages, they could be liable if managers know that porn spam is a problem and do not adequately move to address it.

Most major Internet providers — including America Online Inc., EarthLink Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc. — have sued or are suing spammers and their affiliates. Many of these defendants are listed as "John Doe," meaning the companies could not determine their identities. However, filing the lawsuits gives them additional authority to subpoena service providers and others to try to track down the spammers.

America Online, for example, recently filed five federal lawsuits targeting spammers it accused of sending some one billion junk e-mail messages to its subscribers, The case resulted from about eight million individual spam complaints from subscribers, most of whom used the "Report Spam" feature AOL introduced last fall.

If you use e-mail, as nearly everyone does, spam will continue to be a reality for you, just as junk mail will continue to fill your home mailbox. But you can take steps to minimize its impact and its potential danger to you and your family.

Article copyright © 2003, Focus on the Family.
All rights reserved. International copyright secured.

Dan Davidson directs the Pastoral Resources department at Focus on the Family, which includes serving as editorial director of both the Pastor to Pastor audio series and the Pastor's Weekly Briefing e-mail and Web newsletter. He lives in Colorado Springs, Colo., with his wife, Luz, and their three sons.

Rev. Dan Davidson directs the Pastoral Resources and Technology departments in the Pastoral Ministries division at Focus on the Family, which includes serving as editorial director of the Pastor to Pastor audio series, The Pastor's Weekly Briefing e-mail and Web newsletter, The Shepherd's Covenant Encourager e-mail and Web newsletter, and the Parsonage Web site itself. He lives in Colorado Springs, Colo., with his wife, Luz, and their three sons.